A happy little Trifid

[gregbradley]

Here is a happy little image I took most recently. The tilt was not fully corrected on this image but it came out fine anyway.

Ha LRGB 30 minutes 110 40 40 40. Colour binned 2x2.

https://pbase.com/image/169826418/large

https://pbase.com/image/169826418/original (large size).

Greg.249947

[ChrisV]

Lovely! The background Ha and open cluster complement it beautifully

[Slawomir]

Looks great Greg! Very nice rich field :thumbsup:

It seems you don't need another wide-field scope - I would be happy to help you in ridding of the surplus one - the 4" guidescope ;)

[gregbradley]

Cheers Chris. Its a lovely area. I wasn't sure if I could get a wide view without showing the Lagoon in it.



Hehe. I nearly have all the bits needed to use it. Perhaps a 100 hour Helix is the go!

I am also thinking it may complement the RHA. I could get colour off it and combine it with luminance and Ha from the Honders.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Ah sigh...I feel very happy after looking at that (not so) little image Greg :D

Mike

[gregbradley]

Haha, thanks Mike. Its kind of a cheerful image don't you think?

Greg.

[RobF]

Huge FOV and detail.....

[gregbradley]

Mike[/QUOTE]



Cheers Rob. The Honders has a very wide field of view despite being a 12 inch scope.

Greg.

[topheart]

Cute as a button!
Well done.
Cheers,
Tim

[beren]

:thumbsup: Awesome vista , congratulations

[gregbradley]

Cheers Tim. I also have some recent CDK data I might add to it.



Thank you Beren.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

Looks like Christmas has arrived early this year.

A very colourful and pretty scene indeed :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Good to see the Trifid in context, as a glowing cloud of gas against a starry, dusty galaxy of mostly warm-coloured stars. Beautifully done.

[gregbradley]

Hehe. yes it does.




Thanks M n T!

Greg.

[IanP]

Hi Greg,
Beautiful field of view :thumbsup:
Maybe it is only on my screen, but the core of M20 looks over-stretched; I've made one run (without mask) using HDRMultiscaleTransform (default, to lightness only), and you can see all stars in it ... :)

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ian. I just tried that but it made the Trifid look very unpleasant.I did some HDR toning on the original and its about as good as it will get with this data. It would need some shorter exposures.

I have some high quality CDK17 data which was incomplete due to weather. I'll add that in and perhaps it will be recovered that way. But personally those few little stars blown out in the core don't bother me.

Greg.

[rustigsmed]

cracking image, excellent colour as usual :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

I've edited the image from Ian's observations.

I've done some Photoshop devilry where the Trifid now has the body of a Honders 12 inch and the head of a CDK17!

So more detail in the centre areas and a bit more dynamic range.

Same original links:

https://pbase.com/image/169826418/large

https://pbase.com/image/169826418/original

It pays to archive earlier data for adding in later on. Its a multi year approach to getting longer exposures!

This one is now around 15 hours.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Russell.

Greg.

[IanP]

:cheers:

[topheart]

Wow Greg!
The combo image is wonderful!
Cheers,
Tim

[gregbradley]

Thanks for your observation.



Thanks Tim. The CDK data is quite detailed.

Greg.

[Andy01]

Yep, the revised version is lovely- subtle & diaphanous- well done! :thumbsup:

[Slawomir]

Echoing others - the new version is splendid :thumbsup:

Wondering if any stars get elongated and some detail blurred in multi-year astro images :question:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Andy. Its hard to beat aperture in good seeing conditions.



Thanks Suavi.

Good point. I haven't found it to be an issue. The new higher accuracy PI integration tools sound worthwhile and worth investigating. I find CCDStack to sometimes not do the best job and sometimes it refuses to align images.

If there are subtle changes like you pack out the camera to handle tilt later but not in the original that possibly may affect it. Registar though I think would be hard to fool.

[Slawomir]

I was thinking more in terms of apparent star movement relative to us and gas expansion.

[gregbradley]

I see. I have combined new and old sets
before and did not notice any issues there.
Greg

[Slawomir]

Thank you for confirming that Greg.

I did a quick calculation for the Helix, and it would take about 40 years to have the nebula expand by one pixel when imaging at 1 arcsec per pixel. It would be even less movement for the most of the objects located further away. So we should be able to integrate data collected even a few decades apart without any noticeable effect on the sharpness of the image, maybe with an exception for the few really fast moving stars.

[Paul Haese]

It's a nice composition Greg with lovely colour. Little refractor like stars too.

[gregbradley]

The distances are so vast that even if the relative speeds are large the angular shift would be tiny.



Cheers Paul. When the tilt is dialled in the stars do become quite pinpoint which is great for an astrograph.

Greg.