Chamaeleon I

[ChrisV]

Here's my attempt at Chamaeleon I, part of the Chamaeleon Dark Nebula Complex. 12 hrs of 90sec subs on an ASI071MC (UV/IR filter) and an 80mm refractor - processed in PI.

I had a lot of trouble trying to bring out any of the gas clouds. You can barely see them. I think the problem was a whole pile of uneven illumination. I tried to remove it with DBEextraction, and not clobber the dark and cloud bits. Part of it might be some remaining cloudy subs as it wasn't great Feb-Mar when I did this. Also, I suppose a big issue was that my scope was mostly pointing in the general direction of Sydney city (23km away).

Comments, suggestions please.
Almost gave up before I started processing when I saw Strongman Mike Sidonio's Cham II in Aus Sky&Telescope. And then I got delayed processing as the fan on my CPU cooler died. The replacement water cooled one took ages to arrive, but it really made a difference. Now with all 8 cores running at 100% it only touches 60C!!
http://www.astrobin.com/4c518c/

Hey, but enough of my first world whinging. Chris

[graham.hobart]

I really like it chris- I love dark nebs:thumbsup:

[Placidus]

That is soooo scary!

Very well done. A most impressive and memorable image.

[Geoff45]

It’s a nice wide field Chris. A small refractor is always going to struggle with this one. Are you able to take more than 90s subs? I think that would help a lot.
I did a smaller part of this complex a couple of weeks ago with 12.5 inch scope. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=181762. I guess there is no substitute for aperture.

[Ant0nio]

Well done Chris :thumbsup:. You've managed to reveal the "creature" in your image of this challenging target.
A great effort imo.
Cheers,
Tony

[gregbradley]

Dust type images are always tough as its so dim. You've done well there. I would have thought some of those features would be blue as they are dust reflection though.

Greg.

[ChrisV]

Thanks all for the comments.

Geoff - yes I saw your nice shot of IC2631. At 90sec I figure my subs are swamping read noise without oo much star saturation.

Greg - that was a big concern, colour. I had a lot of trouble with background extraction on a wide field with such a variable area. I looked at a bunch of images others have done on it and tried to imagine how it should go. Earlier versions had a lot of red around the centre of the image which I did't think should be there.

[multiweb]

Brilliant! :thumbsup: Such a nice part of the sky.

[Atmos]

You’ve done a good job to capture a dark nebula from Sydney, light pollution really murders darker nebula :lol: