Eagle 2017: 31 hrs

[Placidus]

As Mr Hopkins once said about another eagle, Sheer plod makes plow-down sillion shine. In our case, that was getting enough SII over the last 4 nights for it to be grit-free without noise reduction. About half the data are from 2015.

Big one here (https://photos.smugmug.com/Category/Star-Forming-Regions/i-ZWTQCv8/0/a91ec612/O/Eagle%20Ha%207%20OIII%2010%20SII%20 14%20hrs.jpg)


At this focal length, we see the Eagle as being the big black beaky thing covering much of the top third of the image, with its pointy sharp beak wind-hovering over the Star Queen on her throne.

Always a curiosity is the giant yellow-green and steaming hot pineapple ring at top right, sitting on the Eagle's outstretched wing.

Others with sharp eyes will also see the side-on Dragon, to our left of the Eagle's beak. The dragon is giving its tasty dark-haired trainer a pre-dinner slurp. Even sharper eyes will see the Reluctant Parachutist, about 4 o'clock from the Star Queen. Sadly, the parachutist's canopy has failed to open. We also draw your attention to the fact that the Star Queen is holding a very fashionable black leather thigh-boot, which for some reason is dripping wet. Water is running profusely from the toe. You can't get good help.

Best,
Mike and Trish



H-alpha 7 hrs, OIII 10 hrs, SII 14 hrs. Aspen CG16M on 20" PlaneWave. Field approx 36 min arc.

Processing with GoodLook 64:

- Black point, decon, colour balance, arcsinh stretch
- Go starless, wavelet sharpen, re-tweak colour
- Brighten the darker outer regions
- Put H-alpha stars only back as white

[JA]

Congratulations !. What an incredible result - Dark / sinister, creamy and , detailed.

The diffraction spikes are amazingly insignificant. I'm curious as to whether they've been processed out, or that's just the way they come, some sort of product of the large aperture scope v thin spider. Hubble - eat your heart out.

Well done and something for anyone to aim for :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Placidus]

Thanks, J. Nice to hear from you.

We don't do anything special to the diffraction spikes. For us, they are only ever very marked on extremely bright stars, so we miss out on that cute Christmas Card effect.

[strongmanmike]

Couple of minor issues...but meah, who cares, overall quite magnificent when not pixel peeping (Ill take my medication) :thumbsup: and yes, lots of wonderful shapes of all sorts of things in that :D

Ok.... here's some well earned subservience ...

:bowdown: :bowdown:

Mike
PS....have I ever mentioned I'd love your telescope..? :question:

Oh and BTW that is both a scientifically meaningful and aesthetically pleasing palette!

[gregbradley]

Boy, that really is superb.

Greg.

[Stevec35]

Yep - that's the money shot. Not 100% happy with the stars but I've grown accustomed to RGB stars in NB images. Overall though a great image with definite resemblance to the classic Hubble shot.

Cheers

Steve

[mountainjoo]

Wow, colours here are very pleasing. Great result.

[Placidus]

Gee, shucks, pshaw ... feeling suitably :scared3:.

Thanks Mike! :D



Thanks, Greg. We've been trying to do faint galaxies in Virgo early in the night before the moon comes up, and we've programmed this lot in for after midnight, after moonrise, after slew limit on the galaxies, whichever came first. Some images got chucked out due to cloud, but it slowly accumulated all by itself. The biggest problem was residual images of the focusing star.



Thanks Steve! Looks like we're going to have to take some RGB stars over new moon, and learn to drop them into the starless image. Wish us luck!



Cheers, Jerome. Glad you like it.

[marc4darkskies]

Wow M&T! That's a wonderful image! :thumbsup::thumbsup: Detail at full res is excellent! Colours are understated (IMO) but good - it has a dark, rather brooding ambience which is compelling. When you zoom out it takes on a 3D look too - nice!

[traveller]

Awesome, just awesome.
Colour, depth and sharp all round.

[atalas]

incredible detail guys :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

:question:

Definition of pshaw:
—used to express irritation, disapproval, contempt, or disbelief

So which is it?......:ashamed: :lol:

[Marke]

That is a pretty amazing effort by any standard

[Martin Pugh]

Excellent in every way.

Cheers
Martin

[Placidus]

Whoops! Didn't know that. None of the above. Attempt at something like thank you, with a Daffy-Duck-like shy and self-conscious but deep and genuine delight. Here's a longer version:

We're delighted and amazed that this version of the Eagle is finally getting close. It's been a very long road for me, trying to find a good balance between oversharpening and leaving worms or a fake glassy look, versus leaving it looking like we've got smeary glasses, leaving it overwhelmed by H-alpha and Kermit green versus ending up with gritty SII and magenta rings, an especially difficult problem for a colourblind astrophotographer. You've been wonderfully helpful and generous and gentle with your ongoing advice and encouragement when we felt like giving up in confusion, and for that and other things we thank you. You are a great tutor.

Thanks also to many others who with advice both gentle and barbed, clear and confusing, have gotten us facing more or less in the right direction.

Very best,
MBJ

[markas]

Splendid image! Fantastic detail and I like the colour balance.

This looking so sharp, how does a tight crop of the pillars look?

Mark

[Bart]

Great depth, has a real deep 3d feel. Top stuff!

[topheart]

OMG!!

One the most effective shot's ever taken of this subject!
Dark, terrifying, brooding, majestic, poetic...almost religious. Definitely three dimensional.

Wonderful!
Congratulations!
Tim

[DJT]

Love it! Excellent stuff!

[alpal]

Hi Mike & Trish,
The pillars look fantastic - so much detail.
The bar keeps getting set higher & higher.

cheers
Allan

[Placidus]

Thanks muchly Mark. You can make your own tight crop if you want to download the big one and crop it appropriately.



Thanks Bart!



Tim, that's really kind. Thrilled that you like it.





Thanks, Allan. The pillars are so special. The detail that the Hubble shot shows is heart-breakingly beautiful. All we can do is to see that the pillars are really there, and imagine.

Very best,
Mike and Trish

[Atmos]

Absolutely love it M&T! Not quite as saturated as my preference (brink of over saturation :lol:) but the colour rendition is great. Very sharp for sure! :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

That's a beauty, such tiny stars and great details. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[PRejto]

M & T, that's a beautiful image! As previously noted dark and brooding which I assume was intentional. Was the word "ominous" used?

My curiosity about the darkness led me to open the image in (don't faint) Photoshop. I was really curious to see where you put the black point because I thought it must be clipped. Wrong (though one might slightly argue about the green channel). Anyway, out of curiosity more than anything I hit the "auto" in levels. Since I really know zero about narrowband imaging I can't say anything except that it seems to bring out some beautiful shading between brown and green especially towards the left side of the image. It made me wonder if you could still keep the "brooding" mood and get some of the transitional colours?

Anyway, you have a great setup in great hands!

Peter

[Placidus]

Thanks, Colin, that's very encouraging. We like trying to bring out the colours in galaxies and clusters, but narrowband usually comes out pretty alarmingly saturated all by itself. Never thought about making it even more so. Winter is kinder than summer with seeing.



Thanks muchly, Marc. Just using H-alpha for the stars, and dropping the bloated SII and OIII certainly helps. We're getting better at removing them in SII and OIII without leaving horrible artifacts.



Many thanks for a thoughtful response, Peter. We're still a bit nervous about making the background too green. Doesn't bother us (outside the window, the winter paddocks are very green, especially the neighbours who are better farmers), but there are traditionalists who find it disturbing.

[cometcatcher]

Lovely image as always M&T!

[Geoff45]

Wow! That's incredibly sharp M &T. Nice balance of colours too.
Geoff

[Slawomir]

Love it! Definitely the sharpest pillars I have seen on IIS :thumbsup:

[Andy01]

Dramatic, moody, Cinematic even ;)
Has a cave like 3D appearance - lovely job guys - gotta be happy with that result! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Thanks Kevin. Glad you like it.



Thanks muchly Geoff. We're starting to suspect that deconvolution and wavelet sharpening work better with long exposures on bright objects.



Thank you indeed, Suavi. That is most encouraging.



Cheers, Andy. We are a little chuffed!

Very best,
Mike and Trish

[RickS]

Late to the party (have been away on a work trip) and there's nothing left to say :lol: Great image, M & T :thumbsup:

[alan meehan]

wow wonderful very special
AL

[Retrograde]

Beautiful!

[Octane]

When I grow up, I want to make images as fabulous as this.

I absolutely love, love, love the understated look.

What a work of art.

H

[Placidus]

Thanks Rick, we're thrilled you like it.



Cheers, Alan, that's kind.



Thanks Pete!



:) Thank you so much for the encouragement, Humayun. :hi:

[codemonkey]

That's a cracker, guys. Exceptional detail. Great work!

[Raydar]

Stunning capture. Nuff said.

Ray

[Placidus]

Thanks Ray and Lee. Most kind.

[Peter Ward]

Some quibbles first...there are odd dim red "icicles" dangling from many of the field stars...as to how/why they are there, I'll defer to your good judgment.

The palette ...humm. :question:..kinda muddy?

The image scale and depth...well.... simply impressive! :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Many thanks, Peter,

The red icicles are due to a hardware (or perhaps design) fault in the Aspen camera. They always show up on medium (but not super bright or super faint) stars when the image is strongly stretched. I've put a lot of effort into writing software to fix them with mixed success. The physics eludes me but I think you yourself once suggested they may be related to the readout electronics. They are red because the SII channel has been stretched the most. They are not due to optics or guiding.

Tell us more about the muddy palette, so we can have a crack at fixing it. Too brown, too grey, not saturated enough?

We've never felt the need to increase saturation on an NB image, firstly because they are usually very saturated already, and secondly because we don't want to imply a strong topographic separation of Ha, OIII, and SII (such as you often get in the Magellanic Clouds) that is not actually there in the object. Perhaps trying to bring out really faint stuff without colour noise has led this one to be undersaturated. Further advice most welcome!

:)

Best,
Mike