Bewitched by a Dome (40 hours)

[Phil Hart]

I've been sitting on this for awhile and it's not getting any better with age. Despite plenty of data I found this Witch's Head quite difficult to process but I am happy with this version.

A good deal of gradient extraction required in PixInsight but still very hard to process the colour overall. This image naturally wanted to be a lot more red/magenta and never as blue as most images of this object I've seen.

https://philhart.smugmug.com/DeepSkyAstrophotography/Nebula/i-6s795Lm


Equipment details on SmugMug with the image. There's also a portrait version in the album with North up which will suit a mobile device better than your desktop monitor (which you can't rotate so easily) ;)

When I first started capturing this image my dome automation was in its early stages but by January it was fully automated. There have been a lot of issues so there's probably another 40 hours of data that's been discarded along the way. And then it was out of action for all of the great weather in February.. because I tried to tinker with something to improve it and then had to wait a fortnight for replacement part.. oops. :shrug: :sadeyes:

Time to think about the next target.. the dome is still capturing a few Witch's Head subs because I haven't had time to program in suitable other targets! :screwy:

Phil

[Atmos]

Certainly looks good to me! You are right, not the most
Mobile friendly hehe
Nicely captured though :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

That's a great witch. Looking good there.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

One of the best renditions I've seen of this nebula.

40 hours...I wish....the weather is clearly better south of the border!

Nice one :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Colin & Greg :thumbsup:



Thanks Peter.

Would be hard to deny that we have been having a better run of weather. Would have actually traded a few clear skies for a little more rain over the last few months (especially while the dome was out of action!) but we've had 27mm today and winter has arrived. We'll see how the patterns go from here..

Phil

[Placidus]

A beautiful, gentle rendition, evoking a strong sense of three-dimensional clouds. Lovely.

And congrats on automating the dome.

Best,
M & T

[RickS]

Nice Witch Head, Phil. Wide field images show a lot of Ha in that region, so maybe it really should be more red/magenta :)

Cheers,
Rick.

[marc4darkskies]

Nice job Phil! Plenty of data there for sure (!) and very nice colour. :thumbsup: Alas, the composition falls a little short for me. I have this frustrating urge to pan slightly down and to the left! :)

[Phil Hart]

Interesting you say that Marcus. Are you referring to the portrait version? There is more image frame to the left but I had to crop it out due to poor image quality.. partly a result of framing not being consistent during acquisition.. one of the automation bugs that is a bit better now.

I don't really like the landscape composition but it is nice on a desktop monitor to be able to fill the screen. Aside from that I prefer the portrait version with north up (most versions have south up). Thanks for the comments ;)

Phil

[JA]

Very nicely done :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Bart]

Lovely work. Envious, as I do not even have a bad image of this. :lol:

[cazza132]

Wow - nice work Phil! :thumbsup: Even pulled out some Ha glow in areas around the perimeter. Excellent detail in the nebula and great star colours!

[topheart]

Well done Phil! Very nice image - great detail.
Great to see you are ironing out the automation side of things.
Good luck with it all.
So many things can go wrong!
Cheers,
Tim

[strongmanmike]

Very nice Witch head Phil :thumbsup:

Mike

[Phil Hart]

Thanks JA, Bart, Mike & Troy!



Thanks Tim. Don't scare me with your stories ;)

Early days for me but automation is fun in its own way and it's not hard to see why people do it - and a good way to impress friends and colleagues too ;). As I roll out of bed for work in the morning all I do is check that the dome is closed and parked in it's normal position.. often go several days before finding out how much clear sky there has been and how much data has been collected.

cheers
Phil

[RobF]

Great work Phil. I've heard this is an extremely faint sucker and you've brought it out really well. Have you shot many other targets with the FSQ?

(glad to see the QHY9 is still cranking (clicking? :)) out top images too!)

[dylan_odonnell]

What an amazing image. One of the best I've seen of that faint nebula! Really clear.

d

[Paul Haese]

Nice image Phil. Doing 40 hours was a good move. When I imaged this same part in almost the same composition I wish I had collected a lot more. At the time I had not started doing remote automation and I remember thinking that automation would have helped. It's always better to collect more than you need in my opinion and in this case you have been able to select the best data. I really like your colours and the vibrancy, by comparison my version looks drab. The dark nebulosity shows up with the greater integration too.

Well done.

[Shiraz]

gosh that is good - pretty dim target with plenty of detail and colour, nice work.

[cometcatcher]

That's a really super WH! One would never realise how faint it is looking at your image. You make the difficult look easy.

Now, can I have 40 hours of sky too? :P

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Rob. Only other image with FSQ to date is Lagoon:
https://philhart.smugmug.com/DeepSkyAstrophotography/Nebula/i-PvB3wxZ









Thanks Paul, Ray, Kevin, Dylan. It is indeed a faint object. I've tried some short exposures in the past but nothing serious. Glad to have been able to bring it out clearly here and that you appreciate it ;). Certainly no way I could have done this without automation. Central Vic weather a pretty good option too it seems.

Phil

[markas]

Terrific image! Worth the time.

Mark

[Cosmic]

Nothing short of epic mate, that's an inspirational capture. Well processed as well and that's sometimes always the hardest part :)

[multiweb]

That looks excellent Phil. Not an easy one to image. You've also nailed the focus. :thumbsup: