Yoda's Walking Stick - HH 100 in Corona Australis

[Placidus]

We last shot this one several years ago, with the STL-11000M. This is 3 hours each R,G,B using an Aspen CG16M on a 20" PlaneWave, taken on the only two decent nights in a month.

Notice the wizened figure of Master Yoda emerging from under a mist of reflection nebulosity. He is wearing a shapeless dark cloak, and holding a yellow walking stick in his twisted, arthritic, reddened hand. The red blob beyond the bottom of the walking stick is part of HH100.

Also of interest is the face-on spiral at the bottom edge, surprising given all the crowding and dust.

A pity is what we think is streaks from distant Gamma CrA, far out of field to the left. They converge to the right spot.

Full sized image with additional 4hrs30 Luminance here (www.mikeberthonjones.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-s2Qm9Xn/0/O/Yoda%202%20L4h30%20RGB%202h30%20eac h.jpg)

[codemonkey]

An interesting area of sky for sure. I'm pretty sure I can see Jimi Hendrix in there.

[gregbradley]

An awesome image Mike. Those red Ha areas actually in the blue reflection neb are they real? I have never seen those before. I see a few areas of red neb which I have seen before but your image is showing them in several areas.

Is this your 20 inch and dark skies picking up what is usually not seen or is it Ha noise from a Ha sub? I imaged this last week with the Trius on the CDK17 and it gave much the same FOV. Unfortunately in my case I think I may need to recollimate my CDK or at least get the camera really square and also the filter wheel acted up.

Greg.

[topheart]

Looking? Found someone you have, eh?

Object, great to image this is....!

:)

Tim

[rustigsmed]

awesome resolution especially on the walking stick.

well done M&T

Cheers

Russ

[Octane]

Beautiful, Mike and Trish.

H

[Slawomir]

Echoing others, a beautiful image, lovely colours and detail. Just not sure about those red areas that Greg has mentioned, and maybe satellite trail could go away? Sorry for being picky, but I just loved soaking in detail in your photo and thus I spotted presence of the dark side...

[strongmanmike]

Lovely image scale that has, beautiful it is.

Nice work young Mike and Trish, use my stick, a magnificent image it is for.

"Ummmm aaaahhhrrr, errrr aaaargh" Chewbacca

[Stevec35]

Beautiful! Nothing to criticize there. Everything looks great.

Cheers

Steve

[Placidus]

Thanks muchly Lee, Greg, Tim, Russ.

Greg, I suspect that there are at least four small red blobs in the blue reflection nebula that are artifact. I'll try to see where they snuck in, and how they got past data rejection. Meanwhile, the big intense red blob at the bottom of the thumbnail of the walking stick is definitely real. Hope your filter wheel behaves better than my outlier rejection algorithm.

[Slawomir]

You're welcome ;)

Please not forget that satellite trail... :scared3:

[Placidus]

Hi, Humayun, Slawomir, Michael, Steve,

Thanks for the nice words!

Just been going over the red spots mentioned by Greg and Slawomir. They are in every single red sub, just barely there but definite in the green subs, and totally absent from the blue subs. The filters are cycled R, G, B, R, G, B ... and across two nights, so it seems unlikely to be residual image "ghosting", because that would affect the first sub or two, but not subsequent ones. It's something that knows what filter is there. BUT, they don't look real. On the raw subs, they look like out of focus stars. I'm only using monochrome one-size-fits-all flats, so it's not a dodgy red flat. Some speck of grease on the red filter that spreads the light, but somehow has a hint in the same spot on the green filter ? Aaaugh! What a nightmare! Will have to look at images of other objects at the same spot.

Slawomir, there were FOUR satellites that went through the image. Most got automatically rejected. One incredibly bright, tumbling thing went through the very first sub just after Trish clicked "Expose". We saw it in the guide scope. That one missed the blender. I'll have a go at manually removing it from the particular sub.

Best,
Mike

[jase]

Tight FoV and action packed with details to get immersed in. Lovely work M&T. Thoroughly enjoyed the view.

[dylan_odonnell]

Absolutely stunning! I hope to get to that level someday.

Here is a close 100% crop of the same region I took as a widefield of the whole cloud on Monday if it helps with your blobs. (Yours is still inverted I think?) I didn't even realise the biggest one here was actually an emission region and thought it was an artifact myself!

d

[Placidus]

Jase and Dylan, thanks muchly.

Greg and Slawomir, I found This APOD shot (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150108.html) by University of North Carolina using a 32" scope at extreme altitude at Cerro Tololo. It's the "Answer in the Back of the Book". There are two faint but intensely red star-blobs towards ten o'clock from Yoda's head, and a few other smaller red splotches around Yoda's scone, which prove to be real, and are possibly HH related. In M&T's image, there are three red blobs more or less along the line of the horizontal diffraction spike from the top ultrabright star. These are artifact. (We notice they're not in Mike Sidonio's or Dylan's shots either). We'll seek them out and destroy them utterly in the next version. Destroy them, we will.

Best,
Mike

[Paul Haese]

Nicely done M&T. Detail level is feathery and tight. Stars are very round. That galaxy in the right hand lower corner is pretty interesting to look at too.

I think you should look at the dark rings around the stars though.

[gregbradley]

Thanks for chasing it up Mike. So those spots either side of the bright stars in the blue neb are real? Someone else's image is not conclusive as they may have though they were artifacts and deleted them using the healing brush. But they are perfectly round unlike the other patches of red.

I wonder if a Ha exposure of this area would clear it up. If I get my filter wheel sorted quickly enough I think I will image this on my CDK and see what comes up. Its worth adding a Ha layer as there is more there than I think most of us thought.

What's HH stand for?

Greg.

[Placidus]

Thanks Paul. Your point about the dark rings is especially important because one or two of the stars really do have a little clear lacuna around them, presumably as a result of radiation pressure or stellar wind, and having sharpening artifact panda eyes around the others detracts from that.

Independently of all that, we're wondering whether it is worth doing some really deep subs in narrowband. We finally found an annotated ESO VLT shot (http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1109c/) that shows where the Herbig-Haro jets and objects are. Very different to what we thought, based on useless text descriptions by everyone from AAO to APOD, and well worth a glimpse.

[Slawomir]

Hi Mike and Trish,

Thank you for looking up the relevant APOD image and for confirming the nature of red areas. I really like exteriorisation of stellar influences on cosmic dust surrounding the central bright star - I have never seen that before.

[Rex]

Stunning image Mike and Trish, and a great story to go along with it. The detail in the whisps of nebulosity are very beautiful, and the little red nebs add another point of interest. Great job guys!

[Placidus]

Thanks, Slawomir. Thanks, Rex.

Cheers,
M&T

[DJT]

Lovely image MnT, very nicely done.

[IanP]

+1
:hi:

[Placidus]

Ian, David,

Thanks guys,

Mike & Trish

[marco]

Excellent details, in particular on HH100, I guess some support of Ha data would help even more to get the contrast of this cosmic comma to boost out..

Clear skies
Marco

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Superb Mike & Trish!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

I really enjoy your images, the detail, colour and processing impressive!

Cheers,

Justin.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Marco. We will definitely have a go with H-alpha as soon as weather permits.



Cheers, Justin!

[SkyViking]

Very impressive M&T! The colour is very pleasing and natural looking and resolution is top notch. Interesting feature with the extra Ha spots too.
I recently did some imaging of this area as a test for my new coma corrector and was surprised by how bright the dust and nebulousity is in the region.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Rolf, glad you like it.

[AlexN]

Very nice indeed. I had a quick stab at this last night with my setup I get similar FOV but nowhere near the resolution. I can see all the same things but it just doesn't look the same. Haha. Beautifully done.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Alex.

[Placidus]

Got a glimpse of clear sky on Saturday night. Added another 4hrs 30mins luminance. Reprocessed from scratch, taking into account feedback so far. No satellite trail. No black rings around stars. Identified and removed several artifacts in the red channel. The artifacts do seem to be related to residual images from previous shots. The new version is a little cleaner, and slightly less pushed. Sadly, the streaks from gamma corona australis are even more obvious than before.

Full sized image with additional 4hrs30 Luminance here (www.mikeberthonjones.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-s2Qm9Xn/0/O/Yoda%202%20L4h30%20RGB%202h30%20eac h.jpg)

[multiweb]

That looks awesome Mike. Really nice details close up. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Thanks, Marc, glad you like it. M&T.

[gregbradley]

A stunner Mike. Perhaps your finest posted here to date.

Its probably not your style but you could also do an aggressive processing version which would bring out lots of that blue gaseous flow and that little cave of turbulent gas etc.

Greg.

[Placidus]

Thanks hugely, Greg! Will have a play.

[RickS]

Great work, M&T! Nice to see this area at such fine resolution.

[Placidus]

Thanks, Rick. Glad you like it.

[topheart]

It is an awesome image!

Very well done!

Cheers,
Tim

[Bassnut]

extremely sharp and detailed MnT, very well done.

[marc4darkskies]

LOVE the image scale guys!! A beautiful & compelling image in terms of colour & detail! I was going to say you can probably go deeper but that does not detract at all from this image. Really, really nice! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Cheers, Marcus

[Andy01]

Stunning and smooth, that's going straight to the pool room I suspect!
Amazing detail and interesting interpretation with the Yoda story too.
Nailed this one you have :thumbsup:

I notice the APOD version you linked has more contrast, seems to add a tad more drama. Possibly something to consider down the track.

Very well done M&T :)

[Placidus]

Thanks, Tim!



Cheers, Fred, glad you like it.



Hi, Marcus. Thanks for the encouragement. We really want to go much deeper - especially to do better on those smaller HH mushroom caps and jets. To that end we've accumulated another 7.5 hours of H-alpha, and it's looking promising, but only incremental reward for effort. We need some clear sky.



Thanks so much Andy. As Marcus says, we need more exposure before we can turn up the contrast, but we'd like to do so one day.

Very best,
Mike and Trish

[RobF]

Wonderful work. Shows the region in an entirely new light and level of detail to anything I've experienced before. Thanks for sharing :)

[Placidus]

Thanks, Rob.

We desperately need another 3 clear not-full-moon nights of H-alpha and then we can show the next version. At least with all this rain cloud and even snow the farm dams are full, and we're watching lots of movies by the fire.

Best,
Mike and Trish