Eta Carinae and the Southern Pillars

[Placidus]

Two frame mosaic. Left hand 2/3 from last year, right hand 2/3 from last weekend, middle third (in which you can just barely see HH-666) is overlap.

SII Ha OIII in Hubble palette. Total 25 hrs exposure in 1hr subs. Aspen 16M on 20" PlaneWave. North at left.

Big one here. (http://www.mikeberthonjones.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-9cT4F7m/0/O/Eta%20Carinae%20and%20Southern%20Pi llars.jpg)

Every picture tells a story, baby.
Cheers,
Mike n Trish

[RickS]

Nice resolution and colours, Mike & Trish! I like it a lot.

Cheers,
Rick.

[DJScotty]

As do I!
Lovely. Well done :thumbsup:

DJ Scotty

[gregbradley]

Beautiful. A bit soft, it could do with some selective sharpening.

Magenta stars are relatively easy to reduce and would enhance the image. Eta Carina star is shown as green and be better if that were corrected.

A fantastic image with some room for enhancement to take it further.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Bit of work in this me thinks :question: :thumbsup: and you have come up with an attractive colour palette (fiiiiinally! :lol:) this time Mike and Trish, it looks quite beautiful :love: I really like the subtle features in the lower right quadrant of the image, some lovely layers going on there :thumbsup:

Great job guys, hard to create something of interest with such a well imaged field :thumbsup:

Mike

[Placidus]

Thanks, guys :)

[Placidus]

Thanks, Greg, and thanks for the useful advice.

The green Eta carinae is quite intentional. I should have put that in the caption. I didn't want to mess up the Homunculus. The inner, two-shuttle-cocks back-to-back Homunculus strong in OIII is just barely discernible, but the outer, larger but fainter Lion's Beard around the Homunculus (not shown in early Hubble releases but seen in others) is quite visible.

Best,
Mike

[Placidus]

Yeay !!! :) Thanks Mike !!

Regarding the subtle features at the lower right, if one puts one's head on the side (so the image looks North up), one can see a very large but ghostly and transparent Black Dalek, seen side on. Must be all that radiation from Eta that did it.

[Rod771]

Very nice, love the detail. Well done :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Very cool Mike. So much going on in there. It's like an open buffet, all you can dig. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[marc4darkskies]

Outstanding Mike! :thumbsup::thumbsup: Wonderfully nuanced color, great detail and attractive palette! A feast for the eyes! Agree with Mike S, it's a refreshing view of a familiar object!

I actually don't mind the magenta stars these days. After all, they are a natural by-product of this palette.

Cheers, Marcus

[strongmanmike]

I agree with you here too Marcus, the total fear of magenta stars is not warranted IMO, sometimes it does look quite good as long as it is not too strong :thumbsup:

We agree with agreeing as well, don't you agree? :question:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Yes I noticed the detail there - that is great. That's the power of the 20 inch aperture.

I saw yesterday Planewave are now making RCs! But they say its for the scientific community. After all they have been saying for years CDk is sharper than RC although I haven't really seen proof of that in images (mind you I like my CDK17) except perhaps Martins which are superior. The seeing though seems to be the limiting factor as usual.

Greg.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Rod!



Cheers, Marc,
There's a lot of stuff that quite surprised me in the newer area on the right, with thin pillars similar to the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle, many eroded to wasps' waist thinness in places.
Many thanks!



Hi, Marcus, We're genuinely delighted that you like it.

Best,
Mike and Trish

[Placidus]

I agree with you about the seeing. Even the best seeing here (say 1.8 sec arc) is still far worse than the spot size in the extreme corners.

We find that the CDK with its spherical secondary is very easy to collimate. This is especially important for our set-up where the collimation screws are four metres above the ground. (Trish takes 20 second photos 1.5 mm out of focus, while I hang from the dome by my heels and adjust the secondary.)

A superb Ritchey-Chretien might outperform a superb CDK in the Atacama desert, but my vague understanding is that it requires skill to collimate, and an unskilled attempt might negate all the expensive benefit.

[Andy01]

That's a lovely image, great choice of colour palatte too - well done :)
Andy

[Paul Haese]

That is an intriguing view of this ever imaged object. I really like the veiled views of clumping gas and dust which is shrouded by intervening thin gas and dust. It gives that real 3 D feel. I think the green channel you could adjust just a little to give a more magenta colouring to the dust and gas clouds.

Well done, certainly the most pleasing image you have produced in my opinion.

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
that's a great advert for the CDK 20" PlaneWave.
You can clearly make out "the finger of God" next to "the keyhole."
& it doesn't even look like you've tried to sharpen it.
I love the colour palette.
Well done

cheers
Allan

[traveller]

Beautiful details. Well done.
Bo

[Placidus]

Thanks, Andy. Glad you like it.



Yippee! Thanks Paul. I'm slowly starting to understand.



Thanks, Allan. I've heard the "finger" described as the Fickle Finger of Fate. I think it's the "I drive a Bentley" symbol.



Thank you :)

Best,
Mike (and co-pilot Trish)

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
I hope you don't mind -
I just had a quick go at the Keyhole /finger region.
Yours is on the left & mine on the right.
Your pic can take a lot more sharpening & it's fun to play with the colours.

cheers
Allan

[multiweb]

Nice one. I like that.

[AstroJason]

Wow Mike and Trish that is fantastic. Really love the colours in this Carina. Well done guys.

[Placidus]

A nice interpretation, Allan.



Thanks Jason !