Eta Carina Homunculus nebula

[John Hothersall]

SPX350 F9.1, 2x PowerMate, ASI290 uncooled, Baader HaRGB filters, 0.19"/pixel.

Managed to capture really good detail with no breeze and good seeing. I used 0.25 sec exposures about 1000-750 each in HaRGB with low medium and high gain settings no darks used.

A comparison with an attempt in 2011 using GStar-Ex CCD shows the improved technology of new back illuminated 16bit ASI290 CMOS vs old front illum 8bit CCD. The GIF shows a possible expansion of the cloud around Eta Carina over 7 years, not sure if this is due to a brighter more detailed result or actual expansion?

I put together a '3D pair' image where you cross your eyes to get a single 3D image, purely an artistic effect.

Regards, John.

[Ryderscope]

That certainly brings out the detail in the Homunculus John. Most impressive.

[gregbradley]

That is super impressive. I did not know this was even possible for amateur astronomers.

Greg.

[RickS]

Great stuff, John! That's very cool.

[Atmos]

I saw this for the first time at Coolah over the weekend through Allan's 32" and it was Hubble like views!
This gave me the idea of trying to image it some time soon not even sure whether it would be possible but you've shown that it can!

[Stonius]

That definitely looks like expansion to me. You always come up with the most jaw-dropping images, John. I take my hat off to you, I'm more than a little jealous of your amazing astrophotography skills.

I hope you'll permit me one little criticism - I'm pretty sure the eyes on the 3D version are back to front for cross-eyed viewing (I assume you want the humunculus to bulge outward, toward the viewer?).

Cheers and thank you for sharing your amazing work!!

Markus

[batema]

That is very cool. Well done.

Mark.

[Kal]

beatiful capture!

It is definately expanding - as seen here (https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/4cq0o7/the_carina_nebula_expanding_as_seen _by_the_hubble/) through some hubble pics

[Joshua Bunn]

Truly an inspiration John! Fantastic work.

[Placidus]

:bowdown:

[John K]

This type of planetary type deep sky imaging project has been on my tick list for a long time John!

You have just inspired me to try it.

Great work!

[Peter Ward]

Not wanting to rain on your parade John, but the comparative data has me puzzled. The field stars in the newer image are bigger (less resolved? ) than
the older image, yet Eta itself is smaller. :shrug: Selective processing perhaps?

I'd tried and failed in a similar effort with my PGR camera some years back...That said I've suspected it was only a matter of time before camera technology would allow lucky imaging techniques to be applied to brighter deep sky objects.

...kudos to you for trail blazing a successful pathway! :thumbsup:

[bojan]

Fantastic result! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[markas]

Terrific detail! I've never seen it like this before - amazing!

Mark

[Shano592]

The 3D effect is great!

The main image is superb! Fantastic detail.

Definitely looks like expansion of the nebula, around the 3 0'clock mark especially.

Great work.

[alpal]

Great shots John.
I hope Anthony Wesley tries it too.
He's the King of lucky imaging.

The 3D one did looks inverted to me - inside out.

cheers
Allan

[Tony_]

Amazing detail! I didn't know it would be possible to get such a great image of this object except by larger professional scopes. Very well done indeed!

[codemonkey]

Awesome work!

[SimmoW]

Love this! And great use of short subs!

[John Hothersall]

Thanks Marcus, Kal's link shows a suprising expansion over a short time, I thought it would be slower.

The 3D image sticks out to me, there must be something going on in my brain? I could reverse the images to see if that makes a difference because others could see similar indent.



Thank John, planetary skills are of occasional use in deep space, you need good collimation. I did try double the FL but the stars would not keep still in the image although it still could be done in way above avg conditions.



Thanks Peter, my old 8Bit ccd a Mintron 12v6hc same as GStarEx (icx429ALL) has about 8.5e noise at 0 degrees temp and near to 15e at 30+ degrees temp while the ASI290 has 1e noise. Such a difference in quality, the sensitivity especially in the dark layers when 16bit bin averaging which my old ccd could not do. Overall is 2-3x more sensitive. The PGR grasshopper IMX252 is a little better than the ASI290 but 2.5x the price.

The selective processing I used was using the 7nm Ha eta which was a shade smaller than the RGB low gain eta, I used the higher gain for outer detail. The stars are blue in ASI image but a washed out yellow in the Mintron image not sure why this is? My collimation was not as good in old image.


Thanks everyone for your kind words, I was shocked by the amount of detail the ASI caught so I can't wait for core of Lagoon and Triffid as well as the Eagle pillars.

I have Einstein's Cross labeled in the Spring but this may be taking it too far?

Regards, John.

[Stonius]

Id love to see how you go with the cross!

Not sure what happened with the 3D but it definitely receeds into the picture for me. I figure you already know that the trick with 3d for cross eyed viewing is to put the left eye image on the right?
Best
Markus

[Camelopardalis]

Epic John :thumbsup:

[Geoff45]

Wonderful stuff John. Certainly raises the bar.
Geoff

[multiweb]

That's subzero cool. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: