30 Doradus

[Peter Ward]

A clear night, thin moon, and colour data from last night allowed me to complete this one.

Reasonably happy with the result, which incorporated some of last year's spider season data.

The link is here (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery443.html)

[Stonius]

Wow! What a fantastic image! Nice detail in the nebulosity, and good processing!

The only thing that drew my eye was that the orange stars seemed a little obtrusive to me - maybe a little too saturated to feel real? Bit it's just a niggle.

Fantastic job!

Markus

[Atmos]

Fantastic spider Peter, lovely the detail and resolution! Something I’ve not been able to do with my tiny 5” :lol:

[Peter Ward]

Ta. I recall Al Nagler giving a talk at Sydney Observatory, many, many moons ago.

His take was: objects need the right framing....and there is nothing wrong with a good 5" scope (have a not too shabby 5" myself ;) ) ...you just have to frame the right subject.



Thanks Markus. Yes, I pondered the orange stars..:question:...but noticed the Chart32 gurus had come up with the same colour, so figured they were on the money.

[Stonius]

Hell, what do I know - you're working at a level I can only aspire to. That picture still blows my mind. I can't decide whether it's judicious use of wavelets, aperture, or good seeing - or a combination of all three, but whatever it is, you've certainly hit the magic formula.

I hope you have plans to do something with that image, it would certainly look great on a wall somewhere.

Best

Markus

[Andy01]

Wow! That's bold & beautiful - well done :thumbsup:
Surreal looking at the details you have managed to capture - astounding really :eyepop:

[JA]

Fantastic result Peter. There's a real sense of 3D depth in the image :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Peter Ward]

I take the GIGO (garbage-in-garbage-out) approach to imaging. Without good raw data, you are not going to fix it with heroic image processing.

Alluna's optics are simply remarkable. Zerodur primary with a Strehl of 0.96 and dedicated 4" field corrector. German engineering. Just don't mention the war :).

Same with the PMEII. Like an American muscle car, it has the horsepower to simply and accurately put some serious payload where you want it.

I do not use wavelet sharpening on DSO images. In this case the H-alpha data did get a smidge of high pass filtering, but that was it.

While many shy away from the bamboo-under the fingernails PixInsight interface, I do recommend their image registration and stacking. It's brilliant and now use it almost exclusively.

My basic work flow is:

Obtain quality data. Don't kid yourself that any eggy or slightly out of focus data is OK. Delete it and re-shoot.

Obtain matching darks and flats

Calibrate in MaxImCCD, then batch save.

Register and integrate with Pixinsight

Use PI's intensity transforms or Maxim's DDP

Colour combine with MaxIm CCD and save to 16bit .tiff for touch up in Photoshop.

[markas]

Superb resolution and detail :thumbsup:


Mark

[Placidus]

That's it. That's the one. The fine details in the nebula are superb!

We are yet again devoid of a camera, and passively watching new moon crystal clear windless skies. Your image gives us much vicarious pleasure.

Best,
MnT

[FlashDrive]

That's got so much detail and colour ...Brilliant :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Terrific result Peter. The colors are gorgeous. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Marc.



:thanx:



Much appreciated.

Oh dear...hopefully the camera on its return it will be "Fearless FLI!"

I covet your dark crystal skies....Coastal gloop moving in here now...










Thanks Guys. While being an "urban imager" has its challenges, you can still occasionally hit a boundary. :)

[Stonius]

Thanks for the rundown. That's very informative. Interesting you prefer calibration in MaxImCCD. Convenience? Or does it do a better job?

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
that's so sharp and clear - it's amazing.


cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

Thank you indeed.



Well, one can only take so much bamboo.:). Suffice to say I’m very familiar with MaxIm. PI may well do a better job...but I suspect pain will need to be suffered to discover just how much better.....

[Stonius]

I know what you mean, I feel the same. But hey, at least pixinsight comes with a free lifetime supply of bamboo. It's platform non-specific, backwards *and forwards compatible and biodegradeable too!

:-)

-Markus

[Joshua Bunn]

yep, that is a fine image Peter, not only does aperture rule, but also focal length in this case.

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Josh. Right tool for the job I guess :question: But, I think the image could do with some Luminance data just to tidy things up a bit....but of course, the moon is now waxing, clouds gathering, plus some rain for good measure :lol:

[beren]

:thumbsup: Impressive image Peter congrats, almost 3D like drawing your eye to the centre :)

[Peter Ward]

As the young man from Memphis would say "thank you...thank you very much" :thumbsup:

[topheart]

Congratulations on a superb image Peter!
Cheers,
Tim

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Tim, too kind :thanx:

[petershah]

just beautiful work...love your star colour:thumbsup:

[Bart]

I like it a lot, it has beautiful colour on my screen.

[Peter Ward]

Glad you enjoy the view.


Thanks...I suspect this arachnid is a tough one to see in the UK. :) (We were touring the Costwolds a few weeks ago...beautiful countryside, so much history! it makes Oz look bereft....our pollies allow developers to bulldoze way too much :sadeyes: )

[h0ughy]

wow looks great on the 48" in the shed - even have to scroll to see it all.

don't take this the wrong way but - nice image! the others have said enough!!

[Paul Haese]

That is a nice rendering of this object. Resolution is very nice. The colour is superb, something I often struggle to obtain but never seem to get the same richness.

Do I see some egg shaped stars in the left side area? I recall you mentioning that you have finally got the distance right on the flattener.

[Peter Ward]

Ta Paul, yes there is a little elongation toward the left. An annoying tilt in the camera that was in last year's data (which is also in this image) which I needed to tame the noise with this season's data.



:lol: I'd only uploaded the HD version....the 4k version looks sweet on my
5k iMac screen.

[keller60]

Amazing image...and I see a well deserved NASA APOD :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Ta, I knew about the APOD a couple of days ago, but had to keep it under wraps until today..... nice to bag another one :cool:

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181117.html

[Retrograde]

Congrats on the APOD Peter!

Apart from the fabulous depth and detail, your image has an amazing 3D quality to it. Feels more like you are flying towards it through space rather than looking at it from a distant vantage point. :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Congratulations Peter,
once again you've done something that
I think we all aspire to.


cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

Thanks gentlemen. When I first frequented IIS there were only a handful of deep sky imagers that were producing some excellent images. My critiques were (likely still are :) ) seen as abrasive, but in my defence, it likely comes from my aviation background where near enough is simply not good enough.

I have to observe now there are many imagers in Oz (and who post regularly here) doing absolutely superb work, which I’ve often admired and pondered “ Wow!, how the heck did they do that! ?

Sure, I enjoy the occasional recognition/glittering prize , but it’s also great to see so many other astrophotographers in Oz raising the bar and being recognised both here and internationally. :thumbsup:

[Andy01]

Congratulations on the Apod Peter!
Good to bag another one for team IIS Oz.
Well done! :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Andy...APOD's are hard to predict, but nice to get the seal of approval
from none other than NASA :D

That said, time to let this post sink down the list and move on :thumbsup:

[cometcatcher]

Congratulations Peter! It's a fantastic image.

[marc4darkskies]

Breathtaking clarity and colour Peter!! :thumbsup::thumbsup: Congrats on the APOD too!

[Peter Ward]

Thank you Marcus and Kevin, high praise indeed. :thanx:.....now can you do anything about this lousy weather :)

[gregbradley]

Congrats on your APOD and its a stunning image.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

Gee..:thanx: this is quite humbling...thanks very much Greg.

That said, I only discovered today that I'd been chasing my tail on, as Paul correctly highlighted, the occasional eggy star profile for the last 12 months.

I could only pick it up on nights of good seeing and always suspected camera tilt, as my Taka collimation scope indicated all was well.

After testing the secondary with a double pass laser collimator for the first time today..well ..duh...it wasn't.

Old trick an old dog should have known....:rolleyes:

Soo...maybe "you 'anit seen nothin' yet" :)