Bicolor Keyhole

[multiweb]

Got a good run of clear skies in Sydney and I managed to grab some Oiii. Unfortunately the seeing wasn't consistent so I had to cull a lot of subs and pick and choose. In the end I managed to get nearly 6 hours of it. I blended it with some ~30h of Ha I had from December 2018 and cropped a bit because of the registration in the fields. I got plenty more Sii and Oiii as well but the FWHM is just not there.

I have a 1:1 here [2482x1700 - 1.5MB] (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC3372_CN-212_HaOiii_121.jpg)
and a HD here [1920x1315 - 1MB] (http://www.astropic.net/astro/NGC3372_CN-212_HaOiii_HD.jpg)

Blend is Ha HaOiii(50/50) Oiii

Enjoy the views. :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

Wow what a fantastic capture. I love the subtle details

[Placidus]

That is truly stunning Marc. One of the things that always catches our eye is the Fickle Finger of Fate. When we try, the star at the distal knuckle of the finger tends to burn out and intrude. You have the Whole Finger.


So Fame and Fortune to you.


And a lovely Ha-OIII blend. It's subtle gentle pleasing colour.



MnT

[Andy01]

Absolutely magnificent - one of your best ever images imo! :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

The detail at the FL is truly remarkable :thumbsup:
So to borrow your own catchphrase - "One for your Poolroom!" :lol:

[RB]

That's stunning mate.
I'm truly in awe with what you've achieved here.

Congratulations on a magnificent capture Marc.

:cheers:

[gregbradley]

I agree with the other posters, a magnificent image! Bravo. Your best.

One question though, why is the fickly finger pointing up like that? Are you trying to tell us something?

Greg.

[vlazg]

Stunning Marc, great colour and detail. :thumbsup:

[topheart]

Well done Marc!!

Super sharp and detailed!!
Cheers,
Tim

[Peter Ward]

Bravo! Nice to see others testing the narrow-field waters.

An exceptional rendition. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[codemonkey]

Jumpin' on the bandwagon here too, Marc. This is awesome, well done!

[Atmos]

Fantastic Marc!!
The detail in there is exquisite!

It’s just something I cannot achieve with my poxy OSC :lol:

[multiweb]

Thanks a lot David. Yeah I'm very pleased with the level of details too so far. :thumbsup:


Thanks Mike. :thumbsup: Yeah the finger is a classic but I was trying to get the herbig haro jets in the misty mountain. Turned out to be on the edge of the fov after matching the channels.

To be fair I'm only scratching the surface of what this scope can deliver. It is freakishly sharp and because it still has a relatively small aperture it is not affected by seeing as much as a wider light bucket. My mount guiding is pushed well beyond its limit though. So I've come to the conclusion that to access the next level of details under the right conditions I'm going to have to use the starlight Xpress SXV-AO-L that I have. It's going to be a bit of planning with the back focus and mean of focusing but if I want to take up all the mount slack and occasional wind gust that's the only way.

The guide stars in the lodestar are still so pinpoint that in practice I can rely on them in the guider's image to focus the scope. The problem is that it's so sharp that if I move the focuser while imaging or even walk within 1m around the peer I can see the effect on the guide graph. So at the moment that's my problem. I loose a lot of subs. I can't keep that rig steady long enough to get the most out of it. 1st world problem I know. :lol: The AO should take care of this and I can go back to eating cheese and drinking wine. ;)



:lol: Right now I'd settle for a nice cappuccino and a cake at the local cafe but not for while yet. I miss that the most :sadeyes:



Thanks Andy. :thumbsup: Certainly personal best at that FL on the keyhole but the guiding is still the weak point. This scope can still deliver so much more.


Thanks a lot Andrew. :drink:


Thanks Greg. :thumbsup: No, nothing to tell. :lol: Just tried to frame the interesting central bits to fit in a small 1:1 thumbnail. Just turned out this way.


Thanks mate. :thumbsup:


Thanks Tim. Glad you liked it. :thumbsup:


Thanks a lot Peter. :thumbsup: Waiting on your rendition with your light bucket.


Thanks a lot Lee. :thumbsup:




Thanks Colin. :thumbsup: With the OSC you could achieve the same level of details on your Mewlon by using drizzling when you debayer. I do that a lot with the FSQ when I use the QHY8. You dither and get a lot of subs. Works quite well.

[Atmos]

Not sure whether drizzling makes a difference when the FWHM is already 4-5 pixels (1.6-2”).

[willik]

Feather in your hat top image marc
Martin

[multiweb]

The more pixels to play with the easier it is to process for me I find. Then you bin2x2 back to native res. I tried both ways and by blinking I can see a difference visually. So here's what I do, and it seems to work for me.

I do all the calibration in CCD Stack, dark/bias/flat fielding/bad pixel map then save the calibrated subs in a directory as FITS 32 bit float.

I then flick through them manually. Depending how many I have in total I decide what "I can live with" rather than filtering the lot based on FWHM or excentricity or background/contrast etc... then pick a "good one" to register everything on.

From there I go in PixInsight and do a StarAlignment/Integration/Drizzle Integration and generate two XISF and FITS combined files for each size. Native and drzlx2.

I load the native res FIT file in Startools and make a TIFF star mask and save it.

I go in PS and double the size of the mask then save as a drzlx2 TIFF mask again. I find startools had a harder time to do a starmask with big fat stars. Maybe it's me (Ivo can chime in) and there's a way to do this but I find it easier to resize the native starmask.

I go back in startools and load the upsized drzlx2 FIT file

I load the upsized starmask and do all my things. Stretching, slight deconv then bin 2x2. Then again do another run of devonv and final noise reduction. Save as TIFF 16bits.

Finally load the channels in PS in layers, do the channel blend. If your SNR is good you might only need a very slight noise reduction. I use Noiseware professional from Imagenomic. I like it because you can do a very tiny noise reduction while increasin the contrast and sharpening at the same time.

If I want extra details I use Topaz(2) Details and if your SNR is good you select the "Micro Contrast Enhancement" preset which is pretty aggressive but can work. Otherwise you use the "Feature Enhancement" which is a lot smoother. Then you make two Topaz layers and apply one as darker color first then the other layer as lighter color.

Then you can tweak your color balance and season to taste, levels, contrast, etc... to something you like. That's how I did this one.

[multiweb]

Thank you very much Martin. :thumbsup:

[John K]

Great image Marc,

A lot of detail there - certainly has a Hubble Image type feel to it.

Clear skies.

John K.

[JA]

Superb Marc. I love the colour:thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Retrograde]

That's gorgeous Marc!

[RichardJ]

Absolutely fabulous.
Well done!!!

Richard J :)

[cometcatcher]

What a fantastic image!

[Benjamin]

To add to the chorus... Incredible! Love the colour scheme too.

[RyanJones]

That’s a really beautiful image Marc. I love the colours and their subtlety.

[multiweb]

Thank you John. :thumbsup: Yes it does a bit. That HST field is very popular.



Thanks mate. :thumbsup:


Thanks a lot Pete. :thumbsup:


Thanks Richard. :thumbsup:


Thank you very much Kevin. :thumbsup:


Thanks Ben. :thumbsup: Colours turned out alright.


Thank you Ryan :thumbsup:

[Nikolas]

Beautiful detail there, astonishing really

[marco]

Absolutely fantastic Marc, well deserved accolade, you can even see the infamous "finger of god" resolved :) One of the very best I have ever seen of this area :bowdown:
Cheers
Marco

PS can you provide more details on OTA and Camera?

[multiweb]

Thanks Nikolas. :thumbsup:



Thanks Marco. :thumbsup:
It's a QHY9 mono guided on a G11 with a lodestar. 5min subs.

[Paulyman]

Wow! That is incredible.

[irwjager]

Wow Marc, lovely image indeed!

Strange about how you say you get better results from a highly oversampled dataset... Some oversampling can be useful for the purpose of deconvolution, but if your dataset is already oversampled at native resolution, I would expect a drizzled dataset to be quite a bit inferior in terms of signal fidelity.

Another possible issue with drizzling (unless done very precisely and copiously) is the potential for correlated noise to come into existence. The latter is infinitely more difficult for algorithms of all sorts (decon, noise reduction) to distinguish from detail. As a result such algorithms may have trouble working properly.

To illustrate, thanks to the oversampling in your JPEG, I was able to restore a fair bit of detail from even the processed/stretched 1:1 image;

https://download.startools.org/TutorialResults/multiweb_NGC3372.jpg

(detail can be corroborated with this recent APOD (https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200215.html)) I can only imagine how much can be restored with the actual linear dataset!

As for the trouble you're having with the star mask; in ST, to create a star mask that includes large contiguous overexposing areas,
Under Mask -> Auto, make sure your Selection Mode includes 'Highlights > Threshold' (e.g. 'Highlights > Threshold' or 'Light Features + Highlights > Threshold').
Then lower 'Threshold' to the brightness value from where you wish to select highlights (e.g. 85.00 would select any pixels brighter than 85% of pure white).

If you got the SII data on the target already, you could consider adding it just for the purpose of coloring, while sticking with the Ha and O-III for your luminance. Color data doesn't have to be amazing to be useful. I for one would be really keen to see this amazing detail in an RGB:SHO/HST palette rendition! :prey: Pretty please?

[multiweb]

Thanks Paul. :thumbsup:



Thanks for the feedback Ivo. :thumbsup: Yeah what I did is a bit unconventional. When I see your result I realise that I've been pretty much shooting myself in the foot. :lol: I've got the AO working tonight and I'm getting some good Sii. I'll dropbox the master FITS for you when stacked and email you the link (usual place). I did send you the Ha channel a while ago didn't I? If not let me know. I'll send you the Oiii and tonight's Sii. :thumbsup:

[RobF]

Fantastic work Marc. Has really lived up to the promise of the early images you put up. Definitey one for the pool room!! :)

[multiweb]

Thanks Rob. :thumbsup: Taking shape yep. Got the AO in the imaging train somehow and tested last night with PHD2. Still have to rtfm but everything connected and didn't crash. The cabling looks like it's out of a frankenstein movie but results are promising. I had some flex with the weight though so I have adaptors made. I'll focus with the primary like the C11 eventually and get rid of the moonlite to have a solid mounting at the back. I got 4h of very noisy Sii but the stars are much better than without the AO. I was guiding at 2Hz but could have gone a lot faster. I just don't know how at this stage. :lol: