LMC, Tarantula & SMC from Astrofest 2016

[multiweb]

Here's my first pic taken Thursday and Friday night which were the best of the lot seeing wise. This is 51x5min, so around four and a half hours.

FSQ106N at prime with a QHY8 OSC and OAG + Lodestar on a G11.

I used PixInsight Bayer Drizzle for this one as my image scale is approx 3 seconds of arc per pixel. I had enough subs and drift to use it.

This is a crop of the original which is about six times bigger.

The 1:1 looks good but it's over 37MB so I did a few versions below if you're feeling lucky and want to pixel peep.

[70% full frame - 4256x2822 - 18.7MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC2070_FSQ106Nx2drz_70.jpg)]

[50% full frame - 3040x2016 - 10.1MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC2070_FSQ106Nx2drz_50.jpg)] Native format after drizzle 50% reduction.

[HD Crop - 1920x1737 - 5.17MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC2070_FSQ106Nx2drz_cp_HD.jpg)] So HD version of crop thumbnail posted.

[Small full frame - 1280x849 - 1MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC2070_FSQ106Nx2drz_ff.jpg)]

Did the colour balance and stretching in Goodlook 64bit. Saturation in PS.
Probably too green for some but at the star 1:1 level, blue and yellow sand makes for the green tinge.

Enjoy the view. :thumbsup:

PS: Added the SMC field shot the same nights. Same treatment in PI although a lot less data. 30x5min.

[70% full frame - 4256x2820 - 19.9MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC346_FSQ106Nx2drz_70.jpg)]

[50% full frame - 3040x2015 - 10.6MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC346_FSQ106Nx2drz_50.jpg)] Native format after drizzle 50% reduction.

[HD Crop - 1920x1909 - 6.4MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC346_FSQ106Nx2drz_cp_ff.jpg)] HD crop.

[Small full frame - 1280x848 - 1MB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC346_FSQ106Nx2drz_f.jpg)]

[Retrograde]

Very, very nice Marc. Fantastic detail in the hi-res versions.

[RickS]

Love the rich colours and panoramic vista, Marc. I went for the biggest version, of course!

[jjjnettie]

Very rich colours. Tasty. :)

[Atmos]

I just went for the small full frame as I am out on the run but it looks brilliant Marc! Appears to be very nicely resolved and sharp :) Love the nebulosity around Tarantula!

[atalas]

Beautiful...great colour and pops nicely

[Peter Ward]

A very tidy LMC indeed. Nice one :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

That looks great Marc.

Greg.

[multiweb]

Thanks Pete. :thumbsup: Lots going on in the high-res. Plenty of small clusters in the field.

Thanks Rick. :thumbsup: Not too green for you? ;)

Thanks a lot JJJ. :thumbsup:

Thanks Colin. :thumbsup: The bayer drizzle process dramatically enhances resolution and details, even colours.

Thanks a lot Louie. :thumbsup: Catch up soon mate.

Thank you Peter. :thumbsup:


Thanks a lot Greg, glad you liked it. :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Chris Cox couldn't convert me to visual, Marc, but I'm developing a tolerance for green :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkZFuKHXa7w

[atalas]

:lol:thanks Rick...forgot how funny that show was.:thumbsup:

[jjjnettie]

Green.....:(

[jjjnettie]

There's a new season on the way :)

[Placidus]

Excellent, Marc! Lots of nebulosity there (colourblind Mike had fun swapping R and G around, so he could see the H-alpha), and squillions of sharp stars in another galaxy. That must have been fiercely difficult to register and stack, with all those stars. Well done!

[multiweb]

:lol: classic!


Thanks Mike. :thumbsup: The bayer drizzle process takes care of that. The star alignment in PI generates *.drz files that are used afterwards during the integration step (stacking). As long as you have enough files and offsets (dithering) then it can fill in all the holes.

I will post a PDF with a step by step tut as another member is interested in Bayer drizzle as well.

[ozstronomer]

Great image Marc,

Love the colours and nice FOV

[Camelopardalis]

Beautiful Marc :thumbsup: love the colouring.

[Dennis]

Wow Marc that is stunning. The 70% full frame is gorgeous, even though it overflowed my 2560x1440 monitor!:):thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[troypiggo]

Very nice. Was going to say something about green, but decided not to. Oh. Wait...

[multiweb]

Thanks Geoff. :thumbsup: I've emailed you.

Thanks a lot mate. :thumbsup:

Thanks Dennis. :thumbsup: My monitor is even smaller. :lol:

[multiweb]

:p

[multiweb]

Here's a PDF file (http://www.astropic.net/astro/pixinsight_drizzle_debayer.pdf) with the flow I followed to do this LMC pic. It's pretty straight forward but needs to be done in a methodical way. It's easy to miss a step.
You will need to install the latest process CFA2RGB (http://www.astropic.net/astro/CFA2RGB-pxm.zip).

[RickS]

The SMC image is excellent too, Marc!



Thanks. Will keep a copy for reference next time someone asks me how to do OSC.

Cheers,
Rick.

[atalas]

Doesn't have the impact of the LMC but still nice work Marc.

[multiweb]

No worries. :thumbsup:


Agreed Louie. The SMC is a little more boring than the LMC, but for the cluster nearby maybe. Lot less going on inside as well. I also had less data to play with and I tried to match the saturation and stretch applied to the LMC. Probably not ideal to push that little data too hard.

[Stevec35]

Very nice Marc. Love the rich colours.

Cheers

Steve

[multiweb]

Thanks Steve. :thumbsup:

[topheart]

Awesome Marc!
Cheers,
Tim

[multiweb]

Thank you Tim. :thumbsup: