Asterix's or Thor's helmet....?

[strongmanmike]

Always saw Asterix's helmet...loved those books! :thumbsup:

Taken over 4 nights and bar one night (when I collected the colour) was under generally good seeing conditions :)

At over 17hrs it is one of my longest exposures taken with the AG12

No magenta stars this time, instead I have produced a natural true colour image from narrowband data:

Asterix's Helmet (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164906292/original) (at full resolution)

Hope you like :)

Mike

[Atmos]

That's lovely Mike :)
From a distance the thumbnail version looks like a snail to me. At full it looks like a bumblebee flying away :P

[Andy01]

You must have been drinking your magic potion because you've smashed that one out!:)
Very, very nice. Obelix & Dogmatix would be very happy with that too.
Terrific result, well done :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Nice shot Mike,
that's a lot of data & you've picked up the very faint areas.

cheers
Allan

[Stevec35]

A nice result Mike. Very pretty.

Cheers

Steve

[andyc]

By Belenos and Toutatis, a fine shot! Nice to see the structures in this a little closer with your skills, and a very pleasing colour mix of narrow and broadband.

[markas]

Terrific close-up. Beautiful colour and detail

Mark

[marc4darkskies]

Looks fine to me Mike - good colour etc - but I'm surprised you haven't pushed deeper with 17 hours on the AG. (cf: my version is also 17 hours).

[Placidus]

Yum!

The natural colour image with H-alpha showing red fooled colourblind MBJ at first. He had to swap the red and green channels, and then suddenly there it was! Excellent!

[Geoff45]

Nicely detailed and sharp there Mike, but I have to agree with Marcus that you've been a bit timid with the background structure. An aggressive push reveals a lot of stuff in the background.

Asterix? Thor? No. It's an alien sending a message. We are here and coming to get you!

[topheart]

Very nice Helmet Mike!
Cheers,
Tim

[cometcatcher]

Sublime colour and detail Mike! The stars look nice in natural colour. ;) ;) ;)

Blimey 17 hours... Where do you fellas get 17 hours of sky time from?

[strongmanmike]

Cheers guys :thumbsup: always good to get out and chuck together an image.

Regarding bringing out more background stuff, I think in this case I was looking for a nice natural looking result and stretching that area just made it look a bit too harsh this time, sure some more nebulosity came out in the back ground (and hey...I know how to reveal faint stuff, no fear of that ;) ) but I had to use too much noise reduction to tame the stretched noise to match in with the processing look I was after and it just didn't look right....:question: I didn't want to have a highly detailed helmet crest and wings area and a non matching smoothed out faint extensions area. I see this in some selectively smoothed/sharpened galaxy shots for example and it looks wrong to me.

Buuut having said that...I did finish this at 2am or so this morning sooooo, maybe I'll take another look when I get home..? :D

Thanks for the feedback dudes :)

Oh and Geoff, good to see the imagination flourishing...you will be up to MBJ's standard before ya know it...:thumbsup:

Mike

[dylan_odonnell]

Wow.. what a beauty! #teamasterix

[Maurice]

That looks great Mike.
Wish I had dark skies to do it justice in RGB.

Cheers
Maurice

[gregbradley]

Very nice Mike. I too thought it may be a little deeper for 17 hours. Perhaps some 2x2 would've helped there.

Love the processing and colours.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Dylan :thumbsup: I loved Obelix, who, along with the Incredible Hulk, was one of my early inspirations to love pure strength and ultimately attaining a great deal of it in my later years :D



Cheers Maurice but most of this was NB, one doesn't absolutely need dark skies to make a colourful image in that case....for shooting faint galaxies (where NB can't be used) however...now that's when ya need some dark skies :)



Cheers Greg :thumbsup:.. in the end there really isn't much more in the frame, for the reasons explained above, I just haven't over emphasised all of it within my processing I guess it comes down to processing choices? :shrug:...I'll have another look...if I get the urge :)

Mike

[SimmoW]

That's ace Mike, and a really natural rgb look that im trying to attain myself (see my next post soon...). Really crisp centre.

Im gettin Thor eyes from all these impressive Thor images lately!

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Simmo, yes one doesn't really need long focal length as such to get good resolution...it's all in the seeing and the image scale :)

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Nice image Mike, oddly imaging the same target around the same time. I agree with Marcus that you could open up the other structures a bit. You have quite a lot of depth in the data that could be revealed. :)



Yes the stretch noise can be seen (I tried and saw it) but not too bad really, especially given the low noise sensor you are using. As you say you wanted something you were happy with. I suppose it could also be the large halo you have on the right hand side too, which is revealed by stretching. ;)



True image scale can be comparable with the right pixel size and f ratio, but good seeing is still needed for a long focal length scope too. In poor seeing a long focal length scope still produces poor results. There are certainly a lot of advantages to both system types, yours without doubt is the imaging speed and the adaptability for wide or narrow field, though the lever arm of a big Newtonian and the price of an f3.8 scope has got to be considered in the equation. I have thought several times about going along this route and each time the price, lever arm and the sheer size of a Newtonian prevents me from buying one.

[alistairsam]

Astoundingly beautiful Mike. Love the natural colours and detail.
so how do you get true colour from NB data. do tell..

Cheers
Alistair

[Slawomir]

I really like your image Mike, nice colours, good detail and nice framing. Hoping to have a go at it one night...

[alpal]

Hi Paul,
What about a 24" f3 Newtonian?
That's plenty of focal length = 1829mm
& heaps of light collecting power.

Mind you - you'd need a huge mount to carry a beast like that.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Thanks for the insightful analysis Paul, I'm flattered that you were compelled to download my image and have a close look before filling me in with your thoughts :thumbsup: :)

Mike



Cheers heaps Alistair :thumbsup: Although not complicated, it's not a straightforward process either but essentially I make a traditional SIIHaOIII version, an RGB version with Ha blended into Red and OIII blended into Green and Blue (in varying proportions) and also a straight RGB version...and than the real alchemy starts, which is basically a bit of blending and star colour layering until I get what I am after :)



Cheers Suavi, it is a geat little object and I have only ever imaged it once before over 10 years ago with a couple of quick fire mono subs through the 6" Stafire with the little SX MX716 camera, so glad to have a full colour Asterix under my belt now :)

Mike

[RickS]

I haven't had a go at this object yet either but this looks like an excellent result, Mike.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Rick, I last shot this back in 05/06 with the Starfire, only a couple of short mono test subs with a much smaller camera.

Mike

[atalas]

Quite awesome with very nice detail through the main structure of the helmet
Mike...lovely colour too:thumbsup:

[suma126]

Great work mike as allways love the detail in the image.:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Louie and Shane. I was quite happy with the detail in the helmet and that was with no ProTrack, no PEC, no AO and at just 1120mm FL too...rustic imaging :D

Mike

[Bassnut]

Well, I like it Mike just the way it is, very smooth and balanced. If deeper means more noise and less defined and messy looking neb extension then this better.

[Shiraz]

looks great to me as well. The background is there, but doesn't look forced in any way and the colour is sweet - like it

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Fred, I agree, it is easy to push to reveal the faint stuff and just end up sugar coating and then blurring the large scale colour noise :)



Thanks Ray, good to hear :thumbsup:

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Paul discovered it in his analysis, a dust donnut in the blue channel :eyepop:. Seems I had used an old set of blue flats in the original process which resulted in a large dust bunny (all be it hard to notice without the stretch-a-matron) left in the blue channel of the original version :doh:. I had to go back and redo the B of the RGB with the correct flats, then layer back in and I have updated the image now (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164906292/original). I did a coupl'a minor tweaks but essential it is the same image....I was drinking during processing :whistle:....so perhaps I control that next time?


Mike

[mountainjoo]

Love the detail there, Mike.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Jerome, yes probably just have to move to better seeing to improve significantly there..?

Mike