The Heavenly Grail - Vela SNR in NB

[Andy01]

My take on the Vela SNR in NB.

It's a huge and fascinating region of space, with a bolt of strong O3 & much Ha present.
The S2 is only subtly different to the Ha emission line, so I found the processing quite challenging to yield a true tricolour image.

That being said, I'm happy with this as last - inspired by marvellous versions from Strongman Mike Sidonio, Rakibul Hasan, Paul Haese & Marco Lorenzi - but mostly Mike's (https://www.flickr.com/photos/strongman/7203204616) for the colour mapping method.
My gear can't match their's for aperture & sharpness though!

Ha = R, O3 = B, S2 = G approx 6.5 hrs of each in 30min subs - total of around 20hrs.
Taken from light pollution city, in suburban Melbourne.

High res HERE (http://www.astrobin.com/full/281588/0/?nc=user)

Can't help but think it reminds me of the Holy Grail floating there in space, clip clop, clip clop :P

C&C welcome, as always :)

[Atmos]

That looks fantastic Andy! Definitely a print worthy field!

[Bart]

Now, that is very nice! Great colour and lotsa wispy bits! I guess this is with the 70mm? It is on my list of to-do once I rebuild my obs but it may be a mosaic with a 132.

Great work! :D:D

Oh, its just a flesh wound! :lol::lol:

[vlazg]

Very, very nice Andy, great fov and framing, love the colour rendition.

Beware the killer rabbit.

[cometcatcher]

It's "very good" Andy. No that's not what I really said. The mods won't let me type that. ;)

[glend]

Love it, i think you have the colours just right.

[gregbradley]

That's a sensational image Andy.

Greg.

[Placidus]

Andy, that's a superb, fantastic, excellent guide to a huge swathe of the Vela SNR. Love the colours, and the sharpness. Your image will help us explore the teensy tiny bits of it that we can see.

[Andy01]

Hi Bart, Thanks for that - yes the little 70mm punches well above it's weight and 30min subs help with the subtle details. :)



Cheers Colin - appreciate your comments :)



Cheers George, it took a looooong time to process several versions & palattes before I settled on this one :thumbsup:



:lol: Kevin, you crack me up! Cheers mate :D



Thanks Glen :thumbsup:



Many thanks Greg - glad you liked it! :)



Thanks very much M&T - I reprocessed it several times before I was happy with the results, guess the hard work paid off. ;)

If one was a masochist, one could attempt a mosaic of this region as there's so much going on and this is just a small section. Anyone up for it?

[Camelopardalis]

Cracking stuff Andy, well done :thumbsup:

[SimmoW]

Did someone say Vela Mosaic??!! Nice pic Andy. Cant wait to start on her too, soon.

[Geoff45]

Truly gobsmacking Andy. Interesting structure, beautiful colour combination and loads of sharp detail. Great job!
Geoff

[Andy01]

Thanks very much Dunk, Simmo & Geoff - it's never easy doing AP so your positive vibes are most welcome :thanx:

[Paul Haese]

Nice image Andy. When I did this I had contemplated doing all three NB filters like your image but wanted to go with the more traditional bi colour at the time. I like the colouring and saturation levels you have employed. Detail is sharp and nice and fine. And; also I like you field of view too. Only it needs more data in my opinion.:scared3:

[strongmanmike]

It's a great region to image that huh? Hard to know where to point the camera really...hence the attraction of a mozaic (http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/VelamosaicM.html). The filaments are just so spectacular, best SNR in the sky IMO, sure the Veil is good but the eclectic extent and subtle complexity of this area trumps it I recon (can keep the pareidolia sufferers among us busy for decades :lol:). This is a very nice result Andy, more believable and less arty farty than some of your recent work arhem :whistle: ;).. makes much more sense to me, well done :thumbsup: Actually the true(er) colour palette (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/141333826/original)on this one is already naturally psychedelic, we all win! :lol:

Mike

[gregbradley]

I am.

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/156116203

Ideally would've added another series of panels but as it gets wider the number of extra panels also goes up. So to go around all the way would mean another 8 panels!

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Aaaah the TEC110FL :love:

[Andy01]

Thanks for your kind words there Paul. I wanted to move away from the traditional bicolour style, so set myself the challenge of tricolour NB - not easy! Agree more data would be of benefit - but (cough) without a permanent off site obs, my patience in the backyard gets pretty thin after a few weeks on the same object!



Thanks Mike (Phew!) - As you may have seen your Flikr version was a very helpful reference for me - and yes, I had to knuckle down and hold back on the artistic interpretation as there is already enough going on here.

It's a wonderfully interesting bit of sky. I started this back in April last year but it was too late in the season to finish, so it was really nagging at me to get it done now. Thanks for the encouragement :)



Wow, yes that's impressive indeed! :thumbsup:

I just started my very first mosaic this weekend, and it seems that I have much to learn! Would you care to share your mosaic workflow?
Cheers
Andy

[RickS]

Looks great, Andy!