Eta Carina mosaic

[LightningNZ]

My completed mosaic of the Eta Carina Nebula (NGC 3372). It appears so large in the sky that it needs more than the 9 panels I could give it. This glorious star forming region lies a whopping 9,000 light years away and is actually much larger and brighter than the more famous Great Orion Nebula.

Final image is slightly cut down from the 9 original panels. Each panel contains 20x 30-second exposures at ISO 200 with a Nikon D5100 on a 6" F/5 Newtonian reflector. A Hutech IDAS light pollution filter and a GSO coma corrector were used. Unguided on HEQ5 pro mount. No calibration images were used, though subs were effectively dithered. All images captured from Wallaroo, near Canberra Australia.

A larger version can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3upf3d38rnsdowg/Eta_30sec_mosaic_med.jpg?dl=0&preview=Eta_30sec_mosaic_med.jpg

[raymo]

Great job Cam; that's a ripper. I think the need for darks is going to
diminish anyway as the latest cameras get quieter and quieter.
raymo

[blink138]

well done mate for attempting a mosaic in the first place, surely not an easy task without the difficulty of getting a half decent image!
pat

[jsmoraes]

Very beautiful image and great work. Congratulations !

[Regulus]

This is lovely Cam. The muted tones do it real justice. One of the best Eta Carinas I've seen.
Well done.

Trev

[LightningNZ]

Thanks Raymo. I think you're right. Flats are probably the most important, to remove vignetting and dust donuts. I just couldn't be bothered. ;)



Thanks Pat. I've tried doing mosaics a few times now because I have such a limited field of view, but I'm effectively doing it by hand. I need to come up with a better way to move to between panels.



Thanks Jorge. I think this is the best images I've ever taken. I'm very proud of it. :)



Thanks Trevor, that means a lot! I've seen so many Eta's that are super saturated but I'm very happy with this. It feels natural to me.

[nebulosity.]

Great job Cam! That is a beautiful shot and I love those super sharp stars! :thumbsup:
Cheers
Jo

[LightningNZ]

Thanks Jo! I haven't seen any pics from you lately - hope everything is going okay?

I actually made some minor changes that I might post soon. I made a layer mask to smooth the background (it's really noisy in the version I linked) and I'd forgotten to use HLVG on this one too. I should actually rework it from scratch... ;)

[multiweb]

That looks very good Cam. Well done. Fantastic colors. :thumbsup:

[Tamtarn]

A super mosaic, excellent clarity and I love the natural tones of the DSLR.
Very deserving of posting in Deep Space :thumbsup:
Barb

[LightningNZ]

Thanks very much Barb! I've reprocessed and posted in the Deep Space forum. Cheers for the encouragement. :)
-Cam

[nebulosity.]

Thanks Cam, the reason I haven't posted any shots is because I have been spending all my spare time in the last year working on building a 3 axis stabilised high altitude balloon payload, from which I hope to do long exposure wide angle shots of the sky from above the atmosphere. It is almost finished so hopefully in a few months I might have something interesting to show.

Saw your repro in the Deep Sky section, lovely final result!

Cheers
Jo

[LightningNZ]

Thanks agian Jo, and geez if that isn't the coolest project... good luck with it all. I look forward to the results. :thumbsup:

For myself I've decided that I need to improve my mounting. I'll start with building a custom tripod or pier. Just need to work out what will go in my car easiest.

[bigjoe]

Great work Cam!

Just goes to show what some hard work and patience can

accomplish on that mount.

bigjoe.

[LightningNZ]

Thanks Joe. I can be a bit of a slog as it is. I'll probably take the mount apart soon and see if I can free up the movement a bit. I'd like to have a crack at building a new tripod or portable pier for it too.



Thanks Marc, much appreciated. I struggled to get decent colours with such short total exposure. I do like the almost "visual" appearance of nebulae with the unmodded camera. Just wish I modded one to take luminance data too. :lol: