More stray cats in the neighbourhood - in colour

[Slawomir]

Hi all,

It was great to have a run of 5 consecutive clear nights, so I thought of finishing the Paw.

I hope this image adds something positive to recently presented on IIS fantastic narrowband and broadband interpretations of this intriguing nebula.

Large version with details is here (https://pbase.com/slawomirlipinski/image/170882889), while full resolution is here (https://a4.pbase.com/o12/75/1404475/1/170882889.vVzLJy8L.CatsPawV2.jpg).

Thank you for looking!
:hi:

[pkinchington]

I can see a water bear (tardigrade) in your image.
Facts About Tardigrades (http://www.livescience.com/57985-tardigrade-facts.html)


Cheers Kanga

[marc4darkskies]

Wish I could have a run of 5 clear nights!!! :mad2::sadeyes:

Excellent image Suavi! :thumbsup: Pleasing colours and great detail! One of the best I've seen recently!

[Peter Ward]

I think Mr A. Powers puts it best:

"Yeah Baby!" :party:

A wonderful rendition. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Andy01]

Excellence in all areas Suavi - Congratulations!!!! :party2::party2::party2:

[Placidus]

Wow! By far the best cat's paw we've seen to date. There are features there - big ones - that we've never noticed before. Looks wonderfully three-dimensional.

[Slawomir]

Thank you Marcus - I hope you will get many clear nights soon.



Thank you Peter - glad you like it.



Thank you Andy - after I did Version #1, I checked your recent excellent image of the cat's paw, and encouraged by your bold interpretation of this fascinating DSO, I Suavified the image a bit more (=add bit of extra colour saturation...eeee, I should still add a bit more saturation..hmmmm that's better, but, let's try yet a bit more saturation...:lol:) .



Thank you Mike and Trish for your always positive and motivating encouragement.

[strongmanmike]

Yeah, great shot Suavi :thumbsup:...worthy of a bridge (or Opera House ;) ) for sure :D

Mike

[Slawomir]

Thank you Mike. Perhaps the image is worthy of a bridge, but maybe over Proserpine river in rural Queensland :lol:

[vlazg]

Brilliant Suavi, an improvement on your previous paw,which was awesome in its own rite, great colour and detail.


Just out of curiosity what are your PHD settings for the Mach1

[rustigsmed]

spectacular!

[Slawomir]

Thank you George.

My current PHD2 settings are 3s exposures (with Lodestar which has fairly large pixels and at f/4.5 I get a high SNR), RA has Hysteresis 10 and Aggressiveness 55, min move 0.2 pixels, DEC is set at resist switch, aggressiveness 80 and min move also 0.20 pixels.



Thank you Russell.

[Benjamin]

A wonderfully distinctive, complex and beautiful image. Thankyou, thankyou thankyou!

[multiweb]

Really nicely done. Incredible details :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Atmos]

I love the fine detail and micro contrast scattered throughout the nebula; always something to look at no matter where you look!
Who did you have to pay off to get 5 clear nights?

[Slawomir]

Thank you Ben for your encouragement and a very kind feedback.



Thank you Marc. Went for just over 50 hours on this target, so data was quite clean. If I could only nail that tilt.



LOL, thank you Colin. It's back to normal though :cloudy:

[gregbradley]

Beautifully sharp and detailed. I like the colour.

By the way I use 6-8 second guide exposures on an AP1600. Same on a PME.
3 seconds may be a bit short as you can end up chasing the seeing and 6 seconds tends to even the seeing out. On a high end mount like an AP Mach 1 longer exposures are possible. Shorter ones are usually needed on lesser mounts with higher errors.

Greg.

[codemonkey]

Sensational, image, as per usual, Suavi! A benchmark image for sure.

[Slawomir]

Thank you Greg. I probably could try longer guiding exposures, but if it works, don't tweak it :lol: Since I acquired Mach1 I am getting a good night sleep with every astro session - no more watching guide graphs and tweaking the settings as the night progresses and no more assisting the mount to recentre after the meridian flip. Just initiate the session and forget.



Thank you Wormsy ;)

Jokes aside, I really appreciate your kind feedback Lee :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Love the detail Suavi of a very tough object to do justice. Even the colour transitions look good, though I am not a big fan of the magenta background. I know this is effectively a result of the palette. The palette does work though overall. I have imaged this several times myself but never been happy with any result obtained. It is a hard object for sure.

[Slawomir]

Thank you Paul. I am with you on the background - I thought of desaturating it but ultimately left the background as is, to preserve information about chemical composition of the outer regions of this nebula.