Pillars of Creation

[Atmos]

This is just a tight crop of the original data so far, need to retake some calibration frames to fix up some banding issues that present themselves when stretching a bit harder. So, tight crop on very high signal area :)

Although it doesn't really present itself this cropped I am still trying to find out where I am getting some tilt in my new imaging train. So far I know that it isn't the focuser, the connection between focuser and CFW which leads me to one of a couple of connections between CFW and QHY163M OR the sensor itself. More testing to hopefully be done Wednesday night :P
To top it off, my sensor to rear corrector is a bit out of whack. It is a few mm off of what I was expecting from the parts description so I'll have to track that down.

Now that the rant is out of the way I am actually really happy with the results, the heavily cropped part anyway :P Well, except for the JPEG compression :lol:

[cometcatcher]

Looks good to me Colin. Maybe this time next year I'll be doing something similar.

[topheart]

Hi Colin,

Very nice sharp pillars!

.....Very nice.

I'm not a fan of narrowband data pink stars, so my taste would be to remove them and use RGB star data or at least turn em white....??!!, but that's just me.

Well done.
I hope you can chase down the tilt problems you describe....can be a pain!
Cheers,
Tim

[willik]

Very nice image not easy to process lot of detail
Martin

[strongmanmike]

Nice one Col, the pillars are a favourite and I really like the colours you show here and you have some of the famous little details there too. While I actually like the look of slightly magenta stars sprinkled across NB mages, I do agree with Tim in this case, as they currently look a bit prominent, possibly some miss rego there too? :)

Mike

[Atmos]

I agree! Some of them stars are really distracting! I just spent 15 minutes this afternoon having a play with one of my favourite regions to see how it would turn out. SO much better than my last attempt last year!

Will try to add some synthetic RGB stars when I go for a full process. I have did bias frames at the moment, they're suffering from some unwanted banding which is apparently caused by the settings I had and a conflict with the 128MB buffer on camera. Only effected my bias frames but that then kills my flats which then causes gradients I cannot remove ;)



Thanks Willik, actually easier processing this little crop compared to the entire image; far smaller dynamic range to deal with.



I'm not a huge fan of the magenta stars unless they're understated; like what Mike"(s) can achieve. Going to reprocess once I get my calibration frames sorted, really need to drizzle integrate it.

Some of the tilt is field curvature due to spacing issues. I thought there was going to be a 1mm difference between the QHY163 and ASI1600, something that can be compensated with the FLI PDF. Turns out to be a lot more than that with my current adapters.



You're going to move away from your DSLR?

[LewisM]

That's almost a Sidonio right there Colin! NICE!

I said ALMOST since you refrained nicely in the flamingo pink range :) :) :P :P

[DJT]

Hi Col

Really nice image. You have the colours just about spot when comparing to the Hubble image. Very impressed.

Well done :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Looks good Colin, apart from the stars :lol: Lots of detail with the reluctant parachutist showing up nicely.

[Atmos]

I wouldn't dare compare it to a Sidonio! 12" beats a 5" and his seeing is nicer ;)



Thanks, I used a Hubble image as my colour template. In saying that, some Hubble images are redder than others which makes it difficult.



Stars are horrid I know :P More detail than I was expecting from a lowly 5".

[traveller]

Great image Colin, I can make out the gas jets on top of the pillars, do you have a larger version?
Not sure about those pink/magenta stars :P
Bo

[Camelopardalis]

You beauty :thumbsup: gives me hope with my 4" :D

[cometcatcher]

That's the plan. I want some cooled narrow band / deeper LRGB action and the only way I'm going to get that is with a mono CCD/CMOS of some sort. Eyeing the ZWO ASI 1600mm-c at this stage.

[Atmos]

This is currently full resolution, until I recalibrate and do a 2x2 or 3x3 drizzle anyway. Just need to retake my Bias frames. Stars are on my To-Do list! Maybe I'll just remove them entirely! No comments then!!! ;)



Small scopes can do very well, Suavi has done a lot with a modest 4" :)



Shiraz has the closest setup to what you're proposing and he's got some fantastic images out of it. You'll have a lot less noise than you're getting with your DSLR.

[SimmoW]

Nice one Colin, great start for the new cam. I do like the images where the pillars are leaping forwards on a prey, but I know this is just a test.

[strongmanmike]

Except around his stars :P

Hey Col, are we picken on ya stars? :question: ..we are all just big bad star bullies :face:..at least there are no worms visible :bashcomp:

[codemonkey]

Looking very nice indeed, Colin, great detail!

[Slawomir]

Yes, looks great ,Colin. I like that you captured blue streamers radiating away from the 'top' of the 'main' pillar :thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Apart from the magenta stars which I find terribly distracting that's a very nice shot of the pillars Colin.

Cheers

Steve

[Andy01]

Love the colour palette & great detail - but can't get past those flouro disco purple Prince stars! :rockband::o
If you can you dial the saturation in them down say 500%, I think you have a ripper of an image in the making :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

I am not a fan of half of the stars either so pick on them all ya'll like! Reworking now but with my lowly 2013 MacBook Pro, some processing steps are, start and go for a shower!
I was comparing 2x2 and 3x3 drizzle to see whether having a higher FWHM (pixels) allowed for harder processing than just a 2x2 drizzle. Worms were considerably easier to control in the 2x2, possibly due to stronger SNR; not being dispersed over more pixels.



Thanks Lee :)



I thought they may have been a processed artefact! Good to know I should be trying to keep them in :P



Thanks Steve, would love to see what your 14" RC could bring up but I imagine it isn't far enough off of the beaten track for you :lol:



Takes about 20s to turn all the stars white in Lightroom with its purple fringe remover tool :) Don't know what the desaturation % is but it obliterates all purple quite effectively ;)
Last night I started working on a drizzled version, 8.5 minutes to do one pass of noise reduction on a synthetic luminance. Going to take near half an hour to do a chrominance noise removal!!

[Paul Haese]

Its a nicely detailed image so far Colin. When I did this same field last year I used the RGB stars to cover the magenta stars. It took some fiddling but I was successful in the end.

[Atmos]

After a few days and several attempts I am leaving it here until I can get more data, NEED more SII data if nothing else. After colour calibration everything in the background is just filled with red dots, everything besides the Pillars region (quite nice SNR) is red dots :P

So I've gone and 2x2 drizzled and then cropped some of the central region out and made a 4096x4096 pixel region to play with. It has the FOV of a 14" F/3.8 and KAF-16803... just without the aperture or signal of such an instrument :P Oh and significantly lighter!

Although I don't mind the magenta/red stars, some are still a bit distracting so I do need to rework those when I've got some more data.

High Res (http://www.astrobin.com/full/297047/0/)

[strongmanmike]

The nebula looks very nice Col :D

Mike

[Atmos]

:lol:

[strongmanmike]

Love this hobby :lol:

[gregbradley]

Nice.job of the pillar.
Narrowband stars are a bit of an art.
RGB stars blended in with a lighten layer are hard to beat when it works!
Greg

[gregbradley]

Nice.job of the pillar.
Narrowband stars are a bit of an art.
RGB stars blended in with a lighten layer are hard to beat when it works!
Greg

[Atmos]

I think I have a slightly better colour balance on this version and replaced everything with white stars just to make all your SHO heathens happy :lol: It is redder than the previous version, this also made it a hell of a lot noisier! Having such a scant amount of SII data.

High Res (http://www.astrobin.com/full/297047/B/)

I am thinking I might have to revisit it a bit though, I think my star mask may have been a little too starry looking at all of the dots now. Although the stars are white (except for a few large extended purple bits), there is too many of them I think.

[Placidus]

We agree - the nebulosity is looking very good indeed.

You are right that the only way forward with SHO is to get enough SII exposure - sometimes a whole night dedicated to just SII, but it can sometimes be very interesting and rewarding in that it tells you where highly processed material has been dredged up deep from within stars. That can be a sign of past supernova activity, showing that the star-forming region has it's Senior's Card, and has reached an advanced stage. Equally, it's not so advanced that all the gas has been consumed and converted to new stars.

[Atmos]

1.3 hours of SII with a 5" is just not enough. My SII master has noise and no contrast in even the brightest of areas :)