Close edge on Spiral

[Peter Ward]

Just spent a few nights at Broken Hill.

Weather was not congenial to any astro until our last night.

But what an amazing sky!

A sampler here (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery546.html)

[keller60]

Truly stunning. An almost unbelievable result.

Wonderful :thumbsup:

[PKay]

A marking point in my life was when the emu 'appeared'.

Nice shot Peter :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Great picture Peter,
I am always impressed by the Milky Way.
Looks like you were very lucky to get the EOS Ra camera
as they are now discontinued.

https://petapixel.com/2021/09/03/canon-has-discontinued-the-astro-focused-eos-ra-mirrorless-camera/





cheers
Allan

[atalas]

Clickbaite! lol.....seriously wonderful shot Pete :thumbsup:

[LonelySpoon]

Not bad....

(Who am I kidding, it's beautiful)

Well done!

Neville
LSO

[Peter Ward]

Thanks one and all for your very positive input.

It is sad that the EOSRa has been discontinued.

I picked mine up "On Sale" in a Westfield camera store that was struggling to sell it.....:shrug:...hence I suspect
despite being awesome for AP, they weren't a big seller for Canon.

My other tool of choice with DSLR's is a Camranger 2.
Being able set all of the camera's modes and assess the images in real time (on an iPad)
from the comfort of a heated vehicle ( Geez it was cold at midnight at The Hill ! :cold: )
was a real plus on this occasion.

[LKD]

Great Image, sorry the weather didn't comply. I am considering a few imaging trips soon, need to investigate a few sites, conditions just not great in SE QLD.

[Peter Ward]

Ta Luke....I hear you.

Sydney is nuts right now....Flooding everywhere (including some water ingress in my Observatory).

The skies on our last night at Broken Hill were amazing. I was picking up Zodiacial light in all sky shots.

[marc4darkskies]

Very nice image Peter! :thumbsup:

Let me know when you want to sell your Ra!! :) Otherwise, any tips on a good astro DSLR??

[JA]

Lovely image Peter with lovely pin-pricks of light and colour well framed by that incredible deep blue sky.

Best
JA

[Peter Ward]

Very kind :thanx:



Ta Marcus.

I believe Nikon still make their D810a, which I looked at but found their H-alpha colour rendition a little too magenta. Not exactly cheap either.

I have a full spectrum modded Canon 5DII, which gives very similar results,
but have to say it requires more post image colour balancing work than the Ra...
...which churns out remarkably accurate colour pretty much "as is"
The full spectrum camera however is very useful for IR or UV photography.

I've found standard mirrorless/DSLR's to simply be inadequate at the h-alpha end.
But, may soon have a chance to test Fuji's latest offering which may address this, otherwise TBA I'm afraid.

[multiweb]

Very nice field Peter. You can clearly see all the messier nebulae if you browse around from NGC3372 right up to M16. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Ta.

Had the weather been more accommodating I would have dearly liked to shoot the same field as a mosaic
with my Canon EF35mm 1.4 LII......a seriously sharp optic...plus the EOS Ra which gives simply amazing results "out of the box". Very little processing required.

Under a dark sky this combo is awesome....but geez...Broken Hill is such a long way from home.....

[AstroViking]

One word: Outstanding.

[Dave882]

Yep stunning capture. Glad you could get at least a bit of clear sky!

[gregbradley]

Wonderful image Peter.

There was one notable critic on DP Review astro forum that would never miss an opportunity to say there is excess bluing which occurs in Photoshop when light levels dim - bluing occurs.

His images were often very yellow and unpleasant so no doubt the blue effect is prettier. But is it accurate? Are there really that many blue stars which as I understand it means young and hot stars?

What are your thoughts on this?

He was against using auto white balance but I found using daylight white balance as he suggested gave ugly excessively yellow images.

Hard to say what's right and wrong as some people may not perceive all colours equally well.

But there must be data about what % of stars are blue in the Milky Way.

Greg.

[Ryderscope]

Nice work Peter and I get why one needs to travel at the moment to find conducive weather conditions. Thanks for the inspiration.

[Peter Ward]

You've raised some very interesting points, in particular...what colour is the Milky Way?

However, I quickly established that Photoshop's debayering is not that flash.

I actually aligned stacked the RAW images using Pixinsight which I think de-bayers and preserves the dynamic range of the data far better than PS CC.

Another problem with super-wide images is natural skyglow.....not so evident here, but I also have full-frame
circular fisheye data from the same session that shows, near the horizon, significant airglow (red) in the west, and a greenish tinge in the east.

I expect as we head slowly toward solar maximum getting a truly dark night from horizon to horizon will be a rarity.

In all cases however, many stars away from the central bulge looked blue, hence I think it's real.

[gregbradley]

Yes I agree many of the stars away from the bulge are blue. That is what I have consistently seen as well.

As to airglow I think it adds a nice dimension to the image especially some mountain scenes where it seems to be more intense and striated green and red.

Greg.