Small Magellanic Cloud RGB

[Atmos]

Well, here is the first 21 hours on the Small Magellanic Cloud. Still planning on getting some Ha and OIII for masses of nebulosity and getting some better quality luminance once I get the new scope collimated in the coming weeks.

It is a 15 panel mosaic with 14x120s RGB per frame so far. If all goes to plan I'll add another 45 hours. This was taken over four nights from Sunday - Wednesday at Heathcote, Vic.

High Res Version (https://www.astrobin.com/full/323524/0/)

65 Megapixel annotated version (~13mb) at ~2.2"/pixel (https://www.dropbox.com/s/mg0v8lajwk6jg93/Small_Magellanic_Cloud_Annotated.jp g?dl=0)

[strongmanmike]

That looks great Colin, got the whole lot in there :thumbsup:...if I was to fork out and get the Tak 645 reducer for my FSQ, I would have about this same FOV but in one shot :D...I'm contemplating....:question:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Fantastic Colin.

Greg.

[Atmos]

If you got 21 hours of RGB with your setup and reducer the depth you’d achieve would be mind boggling! There is something to be said for fitting the whole lot in one field but you also wouldn’t be able to display it as a whopping 750MP image at full res ;)



Thanks Greg :)
Took half an hour to actually process all 15 panels but five days in pre-processing!

[strongmanmike]

Yeah I could, just upsize it in Photoshop :P :rofl:

[alpal]

Nice work Colin,
I wish I could see the 82 MByte version but it won't download.

cheers
Allan

[IanP]

+1

[Christopher-26]

Amazing! If these are only 21 hours, I can't imagine how it will be with other 45 hours.:thumbsup:

[Atmos]

You could drizzle to get to around 65mp ;)



Thankfully it’s only a 24mb file but 82mp. Not sure why it isn’t loading, I’ve asked Mr. Astrobin himself and wondering if there may be a 10,000 pixel limit or something.



Nebulosity will pop a lot more :)

[Camelopardalis]

Beautiful Colin :thumbsup: looks like the new scope is working out well...

[Andy01]

Lovely work there Colin. Co-incidentally I'm working on a 2 panel HaO3RGB mosaic of the same region myself.
If it looks even half as good as yours here I'll be a happy boy, well done! :thumbsup:

[Retrograde]

Yes this is great. Amazing resolution!

[DavidU]

Very well done, awesome processing.

[Atmos]

Even though it isn't working perfectly yet, it is such a wonderful thing to use. This is the first reflector that I've used for imaging and I have to say, I'm not used to the perfect colour correction! The colour correction of the refractors I've used has been very good but just not as perfect.



Your FOV is a smidgen larger than mine Andy :P You'll be able to put significantly more exposure time into any given area so I'm looking forward to your depth. My plan is for 60-70 hours in total but being spread over so many frames, each panel doesn't actually have a huge amount of data.



After I get some good luminance I am hoping for much better resolution. At the moment the uploaded version is ~2"/pixel but I am planning on a 0.65"/pixel version. Just waiting for some adapters to arrive so that I can collimate the beast.



After days of calibration, registration, stacking and drizzle integrating the actual processing was very quick and easy.
Load a RGB panel onto Mike & Trish's GoodLook 64, push two buttons to set the black point and colour, then save. Repeat for all 15 panels. Open in MaximDL, push the DPP button and then the 3x3 bin, repeat for all 15 panels. Very quick and easy.

65 Megapixel annotated version (~13mb) at ~2.2"/pixel (https://www.dropbox.com/s/mg0v8lajwk6jg93/Small_Magellanic_Cloud_Annotated.jp g?dl=0)

[Placidus]

That's wonderful, Colin. Beautifully planned and executed.

[JA]

I just swam through the large 1 - loved it :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Peter Ward]

Serious effort here and a great result. :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Nice job Colin,
It's a great atlas of that area of the sky.

I had forgotten all about NGC 362 - the globular cluster.
Everyone always looks at Tuc 47 instead.
Then I checked it out & the HST has a pic of it:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap171011.html

cheers
Allan

[Atmos]

Thanks :)
GoodLook certainly helps with its quick and easy black point setting and colour calibrating. Even if my laptop has to work hard when editing 65mp images in it hehe



There is just something that super high resolution images show that cannot be displayed just by going with shorter focal length :)



Thanks Peter. Would love to see what your Honders could make of the region!



Hubble definitely wins against my out of collimation 600mm scope :lol: NGC 362 is the forgotten GC in the region. I kinda feel like I should point my Mewlon at one night and see what I can get.

[alpal]

Hi Colin,
Yes - the Mewlon would have the focal length to zoom in on it.
It's a really interesting glob with so many different colours.
I don't know if anyone from here has tried for the best possible pic of it yet?
Maybe it's bright enough to take advantage of lucky imaging with
many 100s of short exposures?

cheers
Allan

[RickS]

That's an impressive project, Colin! Look forward to the final result.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Atmos]

With stormagedon coming this weekend down here, I may lose my $1.5 really unsticky pads for tripod placement. If that happens... I’ll be lost setting up in the back yard!
Precise Parts has sent my adapter and I have a Tak Scope coming from Claude now so hopefully I’ll be able to collinate this thing!



It is a pretty forgotten globular, will have to give it a go some time.