Sharp talons

[Peter Ward]

Ok. I'm embarrassed.

Being a long time SBIG user, you'd think I'd know in which direction to attach an adaptive optics unit.

Until about 3 nights ago... err...well...no. :ashamed:

I was puzzling over why there seemed to be focal-plane tilt in my system....then it dawned on me I'd put the AO on 180 degrees out. :doh:

Now everything is orthogonal and wonderful :love:

...and by the way...here is a link (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery319.html) to probably the best H-alpha Image I've ever taken of M16.

(I hate rip-offs so....the image is watermarked....;) )

[Bassnut]

that is just jaw dropping, most excellent.

[Peter Ward]

Much appreciated Fred. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Wow, that is stunning.

Greg.

[Larryp]

Superb, Peter!

[Octane]

I just got chills down my spine.

WOW!

H

[Spookyer]

Fantastic detail Peter. Took me a while to realise what the purple areas were.

[DavidU]

Stunning detail. Just awesome.

[Peter Ward]

Thanks gentlemen. :)

The star sizes speak for themselves, particularly given the average seeing over the Sydney basin during the last couple of nights.

As you may have guessed, a work in progress....

The web link is at about 60% res....and yes the watermark is purple :thumbsup:

[Joshua Bunn]

Wow Peter, Pinpoint tiny stars, contrast and depth. :thumbsup:

[troypiggo]

The sharpness of the pillars is outstanding, and the stars are tight and round across the field. I have to ask about the background smoothness. Is that a noise reduction filter applied? Seems to have that waxy, too smooth look? Not criticising, just curious. I can only compare the backgrounds to my modest equipment, with which I see much more noise and I guess as a result, accept a more noisy background. Higher end gear must be smoother (and I've noticed that recently on one of Bert's raw images recently), but don't know to what extent.

[Peter Ward]

The background smoothness is probably due a number of factors, No diffraction spikes, superb optics (the Honders ( a 12" F3.8 scope ) is fully corrected for all 5 Seidel aberrations spherical, coma, astigmatism, field curvature and distortion), the camera being at -40C, a 3nm filter, plus had a good calibration data set.

Guiding was at a modest 5Hz....hence it's pretty much all signal, no noise.



Ta Josh

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
that's very sharp.
I am always impressed with your Astro-Physics RHA 305mm F3.8 Honders Astrograph.
What is the FWHM?

cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

Looks to be about 1.8" (CCD inspector images attached)

0.1 arc-sec tilt in the y-axis apparently....then again, no, probably just a calibration error.

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
That's great for FWHM.

The best I ever got in Melbourne was 2.2 arc seconds but I'm not using adaptive optics.
That's a nice flat result.

cheers
Allan

[RickS]

Looks very good, Peter, but hard to tell how good at 60% res. How about a small crop at 100%?

[multiweb]

Wow! Uber cool. Best I've seen to date at that image scale. :thumbsup:

[Rod771]

Me too.:rolleyes:

Fantastic Image Peter, congratulations! :thumbsup:

[troypiggo]

Thanks for the reply. That's amazingly smooth background for no noise reduction. Almost doesn't look right and you should throw some noise in there :)