So anyway, if you like big Nebulas...

[Andy01]

Presenting my most ambitious project to date - Seven panel Mosaic of NGC 3372 - Eta Carina in Narrowband with RGB stars.
Shown in it's entirety to give context of where it begins & ends in space.

A few random numbers...

1 Massive Nebula
2 Telescopes
3 Attempts to get this right
4 Months data collection
5 Days processing
6 Filters
7 Panels
8 Gb file
15min subs
16 Gig of Ram barely copes
250 + NB subs (900 secs)
270 + RGB subs (60secs)
42 Data sets
80+ hrs data
188,000+ stars
several dozen drinks!

This project began six months ago when I thought it would be pretty cool to get the whole nebula. Three attempts later, it ultimately it took 6 panels to get it all in frame, very tricky object to balance and compose with assymetric elements - Gabrielle Mistral/gem cluster at one end and the smoking man at the other, so I've kept the core pretty close to the centre so the other bits can radiate outwards.

I also wanted more resolution in the core, so I brought out my William Optics FLT 110 to get more detail there.
Took forever to get all the data, and Melbourne's inclement weather didn't co-operate often so some were taken under a full moon, resulting in a trip to gradient city with the RGB & O3!

Totally a processing challenge, but perseverance and sheer force of will kept me going though, not sure I'd recommend attempting this for the feint hearted.

Registar is incredible, worth every penny of the US$250 odd I paid - it registered over 188,000 stars!
Gob smakkingly clever software :)

Photoshop photo merge worked well with these registered files to build the mosaic.
I've used a different technique here to overlay RGB stars over the NB ones. Basically removing the colour from them & shrinking them a bit, then overlaying the RGB. There are way too many (did I mention Registar counted over 188,000?) to use star removal technique on this image.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and kept going back and re-doing elements and processes, learned a great deal about what to do and not to do for next time, but if you don't pixel peep too closely - it seems to have turned out ok overall. 'phew!

Time to move on at last!

For what it's worth, I'd like to thank the following IIS'ers, Bert for inspiration, Marc for his forum tips on mosaics, and Mike, M&T & Fred for constructive criticism along the way. :thanx:

Epic Grand Scale Image Here (http://www.astrobin.com/full/295815/G/) (revised, again thx Peter, Allan for the feedback!)

C&C always welcome :)

Cheers

Andy

[Atmos]

A truly epic effort Andy and the results speak for themselves! It is magnificent :)

[vlazg]

Andy,
that is breathtakingly stunning, what an epic journey to attain this.

Congratulations

[Slawomir]

Herculean effort and what a spectacular result Andy :thumbsup:

Perhaps you could add 3 more panels on the left hand side...:scared3:

Just kidding! Awesome result Andy.

[LewisM]

Impressive Andy!

[Peter Ward]

I don't know.
There are many things I like about this image, but many I don't.

Sharpening can add snap to an image, but...and I am also guilty of pushing this envelope....not so much so in making the noise obvious.

Colour palette. Is there science behind the choice? (i.e. highlighting a particular ionization band) or is it a random selection? Why narrow-band? There are so many beautiful and natural colours to be seen within Eta Carina.

Dynamic range. Sorry. It's a mess. No real blacks. Lots of burn-outs at the white end as well. Things look compressed and flat.

But the stars, despite looking a little monochromatic, are beautiful searing points. Nice to see.

A good effort just the same.

[Placidus]

That's a wonderful result, Andy. So many hidden secrets and details. So much variety from region to region captured and presented. Excellent depth, and the mosaic is faultless.

We get the suspicion that somewhere you have a version with far more pixels on a side. Hope you'll publish it somewhere one day.

Meanwhile, we'll come back to this one rather a lot. There's much to see.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


Very best,
M & T

[Stevec35]

A lot of punch there Andy - it just about knocked me off my chair. Looks quite spectacular.

Cheers

Steve

[topheart]

Vast...spectacular....original....b eautiful!!

Congratulations!!
Cheers,
Tim

[Andy01]

:lol:

Cheers Colin - appreciate the comments for both the effort involved & the resulting image :)



Aah, yes George, the Chinese say the longest journey begins with a single step... sure felt like a long march at times though! cheers :)



Cheers Suavi, dunno what I was thinking taking that one on, thought briefly about extending it further, but sanity prevailed and the DMA deadline looms so no - this is it for that target - lol :)



Thanks Lewis, I know you don't impress easily so thanks for the compliment :)



Aaah Peter - I heard you've recently graduated from the Donald Trump school of Diplomacy, perhaps your North Korean solution is next!
Anyway, thanks for the heads up on the dynamic range & star colours, now remedied, cheers :)



Sorry about that Steve, guess it had the desired effect though, cheers :)



Thanks Tim - I'm delighted that all the hard work is appreciated, cheers :)

[traveller]

A huge effort Andy, esp given the less than ideal weather we have been having in Melbourne.
Bo

[cometcatcher]

A very fiery Eta Carina. A very lovely image Andy!

[DJScotty]

Andy that is grand. There's so much to look at. An enormous effort.
Great to hear that registar did not fail you. Sounds like you have a similar software work flow to me so am certainly keen to add registar to mine too.
Excellent

Scott

[Spookyer]

Hey Andy, top effort mate you have showed plenty of processing dedication for this beast.

brett

[Andy01]

Lol, yes the weather gods have not found favour in us Victorians - terrible really, there's been maybe only 1-2 clear nights per month this year. Cheers anyway :)



Thanks Kevin - appreciate the feedback :thumbsup:



Thanks Scott, you won't be dissapointed with Registar - Bit of a pain for me to boot between windows & MacOS (registar is PC only) but well worth it :)



Lol, Cheers Brett, yes it's a labour of love, or persistance or maybe just madness!

[alpal]

Nice work Andy,
especially considering Melbourne's weather.
I think the bright area around the keyhole nebula is a bit over processed
- over sharpened at too many pixels & contrast not quite right with curves.
I think if that area was improved it would be perfect.

cheers
Allan

[RickS]

Congrats on bringing such a huge project to a conclusion, Andy! At screen size it is a stunning image. A minor nit: your blue stars aren't consistent over the whole image - looks like there's a panel or two where they are quite cyan vs the the rest where they are at the magenta end of blue.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Andy01]

Thanks Allan, noted and corrected - see new revision at same link above, cheers & ta for the heads up! :thumbsup:



Cheers Rick, glad you liked it!
I had a devil of a time balancing those RGB panels shot under moonlight - hence the differing colours - probably too late to rectify now -
well spotted though!

[marc4darkskies]

That's a tremendous effort Andy and it's paid off I think. :thumbsup: I find myself enjoying vibrant NB images and this one has that attribute in spades. Is it sailing close to the gaudy wind for some people's tastes? Probably. :) But the overall result is compelling.

[gregbradley]

Congrat Andy on a tremendous effort.
A wonderful image that is very compelling.

That small sensor is making you work hard as this is really only 1 maybe 2 panels with an FSQ106 and a 16803 camera.

Greg

[alpal]

Nice work Andy - looks great.

cheers
Allan

[Andy01]

Thanks Marcus, I tend to favour high visual impact but have endeavoured to restrain myself a bit on this one. lol :D

Narrowband imaging is an opportunity to express my creativity in a technical genre, so my colour palettes are always going to be viewed subjectively.

It's a bit like comparing Constable to Turner, both were amazing painters but had vastly differing styles. :)




Thanks Greg, appreciate the positive feedback!
1-2 panels you say? Gee where's the challenge in that! :rofl:




Thanks Allan, you were 100% right and the image is all the better for your input, cheers :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Well..overall, hey... it is true to your style Andy for sure and ya aint gunna change that anytime soon, are ya? ;) so processing analysis and palette choice are unnecessary...thus, in true Andy style, it is indeed a vista :D :thumbsup:

When viewed in small size at Astro Bin the composition has great visual impact... the amount of work deserves a big pat on the back, take a bow Mr Dreyfuss :thumbsup:

Mike

[The_bluester]

Yikes there is some work in there, amazing work to gather up all that data and stitch it all together. Per your comments and others, I reckon the only way to do much more would be a multi year job to gather all the data moon free and be able to do it without fighting gradients, which will all no doubt run in different directions depending on when each bit of data was captured.

You know, just now is the first time that I have actually "Seen" the smoking man in the smoking man!

[Andy01]

Cheers Mike, you wouldn't really want me to change would you?
Lol, thanks for your nice feedback :)
er- pardon my blond moment were you referring to Richard Dreyfuss from Close Encounters? :question:



Cheers Paul, let's not even consider staying with the same target for a whole year, even my considerable patience would be sorely tested with that!
Glad you found "The Smoking Man" - he's from the X-Files of course :D

[strongmanmike]

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

:)

[Andy01]

Oh yeah, D'uh of course - I loved that movie! :D:thanx:

[Andy01]

Couldn't resist revisiting this one last time based on feedback provided...
a) Redid the luminance to even out previously over-sharpened bits. (Thx Allan & Peter)
b) Redid the blue stars - (tried to anyway) to get more even blues throughout (thx Rick)
c) Revisited local contrast & levels for more impact (thx Peter)

Hopefully that's put this bad boy to rest now... ;)

Thanks everyone :)

Here is the link (http://www.astrobin.com/full/295815/G/)