I refuse to call it the Running Chicken Nebula

[dylan_odonnell]

It's all unofficial anyway so I'm calling mine the Angry Dragon Nebula, and that's that.

20 x 300s guided (Total integration time 100 minutes) over 2 nights before moonrise.
C 9.25" SCT @ F2 (Hyperstar)
QHY12 CCD OSC @ -15C
Stacked in Nebulosity 4

[vlazg]

Nice, great colour.
George

[dylan_odonnell]

Thanks George! I tried to keep the colours as true as possible while correcting the skyglow and not pushing them too far and losing detail.

[cometcatcher]

That's a very nice Angry Dragon Nebula! :)

[dylan_odonnell]

Hehe Thanks Kevin!

[5ash]

Lovely colour , great field of view ,stunning.
Philip

[jenchris]

That's a pretty red gecko buddy.

[astroron]

It has never looked like chicken to me,even when people draw a supposed outline of it.:shrug:
All I see is different shades of red in a big splotch of nebulosity.:help:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[raymo]

That's a ripper Dylan.
raymo

[dylan_odonnell]

Haha thanks guys, I'm really quite happy with it.

One thing that is bugging me is that the stars on the left are sightly larger than the stars on the right. I thought this was collimation at first and tried to adjust but I believe it's because the CCD chip isn't perfectly perpendicular to the incoming light so isn't 100% flat on the focal plane.

I think there is an adapter I can get from QHY for this, I'll have to look into it.

d

[kosh]

That's pretty nice Dylan!
I think the resolution on the uploaded image brings it down a bit though ( at least on my monitor ) but never the less, I like it :thumbsup:.

[dylan_odonnell]

Thanks, here is a larger resolution version if you like !

http://deography.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/CHICKEN-CROPPED.jpg

(Ignore the filename.. it should say DRAGON there)

d

[Mosc_007]

Nice image, but you are correct. It doesn't look like a Running Chicken.

Maybe the Field of View is to small ?

Here is My Running Chicken taken with a C11 and F2 Hyperstar. It does indeed look like a running chicken.


Charles

[dylan_odonnell]

C11 with hyperstar must be a nice Fov! Image looks great. Still looks like a bad ass dragon to me though ;)

[pluto]

This is a really nice image Dylan!
I really like the colours, very pleasing :)
But I think the stars look maybe a little over sharpened or something though? Some of the bright ones have a little black ring like you've used deconvolution without a star mask?

[Camelopardalis]

That's a cracker Dylan, well done :thumbsup: now what's it doing in the beginners section :P

[dylan_odonnell]

It's true, I'm not a fan of the little rings. They come from the "edge enhancement" in the "DPP" stretching dialogue in nebulosity. The difference is very good, in that the stars become small and sharper but the ring is an unwanted artefact of that. The slider for Edge Enhancement only appears to have a few stops.. and this is on the first one... as low as it can be applied!

It's probably not necessary though as I usually do a median inverted-layer-mask to smooth the background and sharpen the stars anyway.. but it does work very very well otherwise!

d

[dylan_odonnell]

Hah! Thanks man. You know when I got here about 12 months ago I was very very intimidated by the beginner section. Took me a long time to post anything. There is some amazing work here. Technically I'm a beginner (at least, I still feel like one). Moving over to the regular image boards would be a good next step, I'm glad you think I might have a chance!

[Mosc_007]

Thanks. The F2 is nice. I should check your post fully. You are also using a Hyperstar and CCD. Mine was done with the QHY10. I will have to upgrade my Nebulosity to 4.0 soon. Got the Email but haven't got it yet.

Yep, what they look like is very subjective. Some have very strange names and others look OK.

Maybe all the data you have captured makes it look less like its name. That happens with running man. The more detail the less it looks like a running man.

Most of these were named with very old scopes that didn't capture much detail.

The more I look at your image the more I realize how good it is.


Charles

[dylan_odonnell]

That's true, the same object can look wildly different depending on how much of the outer details are resolved.



Thanks! The pieces are finally coming together.

d

[Mosc_007]

I used DSLR's for about 18 months. Only this year I bought the QHY10 and the Hyperstar.

I am still learning about using the CCD. It is so different to my 100D and Modded 1100D.

I have a heap to learn about using a CCD. Much better detail but MUCH less sensitive than the DSLR. The Exposure time are hugely longer than the DSLR was.

It was all the extra detail you captured that thru me. When i did it with the QHY10 it looked a lot like a running chicken. Maybe Rotating it 90 degrees will help :)


Looks like I have to have another go at processing. I have only very limited processing skills with very limited software.

Great shot.


Charles

[dylan_odonnell]

You know I had the exact same problem when I got the QHY12 and I was worried it was broken. At first I thought there was something wrong because the subs are so dark, but with DSLR you've got big bright images straight off the camera.

It's normal for the subs to be dark from a CCD, very very dark. You won't see any nebulosity or faint stars until you start stretching the data. But the data *is* there, and in more detail and dynamic range than the DSLR can capture.

The first thing you need to work out are the GAIN and OFFSET settings. It took me ages to figure out the sweet spot. In the end I imaged M42 Orion over and over, changing the GAIN and OFFSET and watching the histogram on each image. When the big hill on the histogram is close to the left - but not clipped - then you are on the right settings. For me it was Gain 27 and Offset 145.

I hope this helps!

d

[Mosc_007]

The DSLR was so easy to use compared to the CCD. Bright images straight from the Camera as you say.

I keep reading that CCD is more sensitive than CMOS. To date my experiance is that CMOS is at least 50 times more sensitive than CCD. But the CMOS doesn't have the fine detail.

I went with the Hyperstar when I bought the CCD as I knew the CCD was not as sensitive. But I wasn't expecting it to be this bad. Hyperstar at F/2 is 25 Times faster exposure time than using F/10. I was expecting the CCD to be pretty short images at F/2. Big mistake.

It is amazing the data is their though. I have taken subs with almost no Nebula in it, after processing, Wow, Its realy their.

5 Mins at F/2 is like 125 Mins at F10. And with the CMOS 5 Mins at F/10 was ok for almost all Nebula. The Helix was mildly saturating on the CMOS at 5 Min exposures using F/6.3

Now I am finding with the CCD at F/2 even 5 Mins (125 Mins F/10) is not long enough.

I did do some 30 Min subs on Rosetta with the QHY10 because I thought nothing was their. At F/2 the CMOS gets saturated after about 15-20 Seconds on objects like that. But even 30 Mins and the CCD wasn't even near saturated at F/2.

The main reason for the CCD was to get my Colours correct. After 12 Months I was getting sick of Red images from the Modded 1100D. Although some Nebula like Trifid look great with the stock 100D.

Biggest problem this year has been the Weather. We go to Linden 2 Sats a month when the moon is hiding. I think we have had 2-3 nights this year. Not much time to play !



Charles

[Retrograde]

That's a really great image!

Interesting to read your comments regarding CCD vs DSLR - good comparison for those of us still at the DSLR stage.