NGC 2070 in Doradus

[Octane]

Hey all,

Aaand, another one I think I'm done with. For now, at least.

I had captured over 60 hours of data on this, but, I was ruthless in culling it down to the best 48 hours of data.

This was made over 31 nights from September through December in 2015.

Boy, does the OIII dominate the field! I look forward to one day getting a long focal length instrument and going to town on all the magnificent gems strewn throughout this incredible part of the sky.

As always, this was made with my valiant combination of the STL-11000M and FSQ-106N, riding atop the trusty G-11 steed.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind my rendition.

A larger version is available here (http://octane2.ddns.net:81/astro/ngc2070.html).

Comments, critiques, lynchings, etc., are most welcome.

Thanks for looking.

H

[skysurfer]

Well, the Tarantula is blue. I captured it recently with a 110mm/5.6 ED telescope and saw the nebula in blue with other red nebulas around it. These red nebulas are a bit missing in your photo and too blue, probably you should push up the red channel something.

[Placidus]

Humayun, that is utterly brilliant. :eyepop:

The depth and detail are magnificent. The long hours have captured everything. A rich and beautiful storehouse.

You've shown the strong topographical separation of Ha, OIII, and SII typical of the LMC very nicely.

[Placidus]

The point of a narrowband image is to study the underlying physics of the area. The colours are chosen arbitrarily, most commonly according to the NASA/Hubble convention of red for SII, green for H-alpha, and blue for OIII. Octane has used this standard convention here.

There is no reason at all to try to make the colours natural, and to attempt to do so misses the point.

Very briefly, H-alpha shows the distribution of easily ionized hydrogen as a tracer of bulk stuff. The OIII shows the distribution of hard ultraviolet light, and/or shock energy, biased toward areas of particularly high vacuum. The SII shows more heavily processed material, particularly from long-past supernova remnants. The details are much more complicated than this.

[strongmanmike]

Ok H I'll give you one of these :prey2: for the result


....and one of these :bowdown: for the effort here :eyepop:

Mike has summed it up pretty well I recon, we need to take back the science from the art!...at least a little :thumbsup:

Mike

[RickS]

Beautiful work, H! One of each from me too: :prey2: :bowdown:

[Martin Pugh]

Bold and striking.

Well done H

Cheers
Martin

[gregbradley]

I can't even imagine the constancy of effort of 31 nights on the same object. Amazingly dedicated to getting the best you can get on this object and it paid off.

A fabulous result and as you say a rich area of very interesting imaging targets.

The 106N's dual fluorite lenses probably also help lift the colour and make it richer. I always found it good for that.

Superb. :party2:

Greg.

[mountainjoo]

As Greg said, 31 nights shows some impressive patience. Very deep with striking colours too.

[Andy01]

Top work H, I like the colour & the detail is astounding! :thumbsup:

Interesting comparison with my recent reprocess of the similar field. Yours has much more O3 & is blue dominated, whereas I incorporated a fair bit of N2 data which boosted/balanced the Ha signal a bit.

...and the sharpness, oh my - yours clearly shows superior Tak optics & deep wells from the STL camera. :eyepop:

I'm sorry but I'm not in love with your composition though.
The little guys on the top left appear to be an afterthought and NGC 1955 has been cut in half.
Probably just my OCD radar going ping, but if it were cropped square and you lost all of those little nebs, the hero NGC 2070 would be much stronger imo. :question:

That being said, as others have mentioned above, bravo! :clap:

[Geoff45]

Great stuff Humayan. Incredible detail over a nice large field. There are so many interesting objects which seem to be seldom imaged. I suppose everyone goes for a Tarantula filling the field and forgets about the rest. Nice contrasting colours too.
Geoff

[xelasnave]

Hard to beat.
Wonderful image.
Hope you were not guiding manually.
I understand Andy's point but I like the composition , the other objects are there but as if to cause the eye to migrate to the main subject.
Alex

[Derek Klepp]

That's impressive.

[Regulus]

The hi-res is definitely worth a look. Nicely done Humayun

[Bassnut]

gee, thats great H, I love the rich colour and monster detail.

[nebulosity.]

An amazing image, well done.

[Octane]

skysurfer,

I think Mike/Trish explained it perfectly in their reply. :)

I haven't captured this area in LRGB, but, have photographed it with unmodified and modified DSLRs. If you do a search for my username in the Deep Space subforum, you'll see images I've posted years ago, which do, indeed, align with the colours you have mentioned.



Mike and Trish,

Thank you!

I'm finding it very tough processing these narrowband targets. But, the results seem to be worth it. :)



Mike,

Appreciate it. I wasn't sure what the reception would be like as it is quite different to what is normally shown. Maybe it's the excessive number of hours that has highlighted typically-unseen bits and pieces? I could have stretched the data further, but, it just looked like a mess at that point. :)



Rick,

Wow, you, too, huh? :D Thank you, lots! Your ColorMask script is to blame!



Thanks, guys!

H

[Octane]

Martin,

High praise, coming from you! Appreciate it. :)



Greg,

Thanks, mate.

It does help that I have a permanent setup. I haven't built the observatory, yet, but, all I have to do is go out and take the Telegizmo cover off, turn the Kendrick and RoboFocus on and its good to go. The heavy lifting is done by CCD Commander. I program it well in advance, and just let it do its thing. Autofocus, meridian flips, etc., are all automated. Once the observatory is actually built, I'll get on to the ACP bandwagon.

I absolutely love my telescope. It never fails to disappoint. :)



Jerome,

Thank you, I appreciate that. :)



Andy,

Thanks, mate!

Yeah, can't really fault the tiny stars the FSQ-106N delivers. It's remarkable, really. PixInsight helps to tame the smallest stars by reducing their size/intensity. I also ran the minimum filter in Photoshop on this, and blended it at a low opacity. I probably shouldn't have, because if I look carefully enough, I can see its tell-tale signs of erosion.

Don't worry -- I agree with you wholeheartedly on the problematic and jarring composition. It's just that I had no idea what was up there! I also cropped a little bit due to some errors in my hydrogen alpha master flat. I just could not be bothered going back and redoing all the calibration steps. It takes too long! Future excursions to this region will be a lot more mindful of what to include and what not to. My original test image of this over two years ago was cropped in 1:1 format and it looked fantastic. I might give it a go on the finalised PSD and see how it looks.



Geoff,

Thanks, a lot. And, yes, I agree -- there's just so much up there. They would make spectacular targets for long focal length images. Or, an all-encompassing mosaic that gets all the little knots and wisps of stuff.



Cheers, gents!

H

[Octane]

Alex,

Thank you!

I would not have a hope in Hell, guiding manually! I tip my hat to the original gangsters who did (and, still do) guide manually.



Derek,

Thanks!



Trevor,

Appreciate it. :)



Fred,

Thanks, heaps, mate!



Jo,

Thanks!



Thanks, again, everyone -- I'm stoked by your response. :)

H

[atalas]

Good work again mate :thumbsup:

[traveller]

Exquisitely excellent work H!

[Octane]

Louie,

Thanks, mate! It's been about 10 years since we went to Zane's and I imaged this through your William Optics scope as my Meade's Autostar cable became busted. Will never forget your generosity. :)



Thanks, Bo. :)



H