The Turbulent Tarantula

[EddieT]

hi all,
Another of our southern spectacles, this one a little more familiar than the last. In Ha this nebula really does come to life and looks even more scary than its name suggests.

[[1ponders]]

:jawdrop:That is totally awesome Eddie. Stunning. I'd love some capture details:eyepop:

[EddieT]

Thanks Paul,
This one is another HaRGB image taken with the Intes MN61 and SBIG ST10xe camera. Exposure times were Ha:R:G:B = 190:40:40:40 minutes (310 minutes in total) taken on the 24th April 2005.

There was no on-axis guidestar for this one so it was guided off-axis by the ST5c on the Synta 102mm f5 (at 1000mm via Meade 2x barlow).

Feel free to ask anything else you may be interested in.

[[1ponders]]

:) I was hoping you'd say a 300D on an 8" meade SCT. :( That really is a brilliant shot. I often read from other astrophotographers trying to get the red colour how hard it is to bring it out, that the neb so often look blue to green. You certainly have the equipment and skill to do it. What processing programs are you using?

[atalas]

Scary stuff Eddie,but a great shot !


Louie:2thumbs:

[seeker372011]

superb

[[1ponders]]

It almost looks like a Renaissance painting of the birth of the universe that wouldn't be out of place being seen on the roof of the Sistine Chapel (If it wasn't doctrinally inapproprate :) )

[EddieT]

Well I don't see why you couldn't use these to get an excellent image of it. The scale would be similar (rough guess). All you need is enough exposure time (or equivalent images to stack) and good focus.

One of the benefits of Ha is that you usually have too much Red :) So that may help to compensate.

For processing, I use Mira (calibration and registration ), Maxim DL (Sigma-rejection combination of each channel: Ha, R,G and B) and PixInsight (background removal, levels, curves, smoothing if needed) with a little post-processing via Photoshop. Maybe a slight levels tweak and Luminance combination with RGB.

[[1ponders]]

Well I've got 4 of those you'ved referenced. 300D, 8" sct, pixinsight and photoshop. So I'm on my way. Just gotta learn to drive the things. I feel a bit like a kid in a pedal cart being passed by a ferrari, and that's meant as all complement to you, and not referring to my efforts. :D

Maxim DL I've heard of and understand a smidgeon about, but Mira I don't recall coming across. Could you expand a bit on its purpose and how its used in image processing?

Thanks

[iceman]

:jawdrop: :eyepop: WOW! I can't believe how cool that looks, it looks like the tarantual is floating above the background stars.. such a 3D look to it.

Simply stunning Eddie.

[EddieT]

Mira has been around longer than any of them and was the original top-of-the-line DOS image processing package for scientific images for several years. It had many advanced functions for science applications, photometry, image stacking, calibration and data analysis utilities and was also very expensive. Then a few years back the first windows version was released and I bought it and did some beta testing for Mike Newberry, founder, principle and main programmer for Axiom Research.

It's still going strong with a new release recently (see www.mirametrics.com) and personally I think it still has the absolute best image registration routines that I've seen. it just has never gotten it wrong in the 5 years or so that I've been using it and it is very well written. I still don't know how it can animate 100 full-size ST10 images at 40fps on my machine which only has enough memory for about 40 images.

[EddieT]

Whoa, so many replies in the time it took me to type that last bit! Thanks to all!

[xelasnave]

Inspirational on many fronts, one of my favorite objects, there sure is a lot to see in that area. .. keep it up.
alex

[EddieT]

BTW: I'm using Mira AP6, V5 was the first windows release and the current version is V7.

[EddieT]

Thanks Alex,

If you would like to see it in all its glory, the page is http://astroshed.com/st10pics/2070-900.html

[[1ponders]]

Whoa I'm glad I was sitting down when I had a look through that site Eddie. After a quick scan through I then went to their "Purchase online store" and selected the pro version. :) However after having a good read through the site I can see why you're so partial to it.

[gaa_ian]

Awesome Eddie :eyepop:
I have just come home from a club night at our dark site & while the Tarantula looked good with a UHC filter & 2" UO Konik.
I think I would need a 32" obsession & HA filter to even come close to seeing that visually !
PS: I hope you are submitting that for publication IN S&S or S&T mag !

[Exfso]

That image is superb, definitely one for the magazines in my opinion. BTW how much Aussie dollars are the Sbig's worth? I know there are different versions of them.

:astron:

[EddieT]

Paul, Mira is expensive. Moreso now than when I purchased V5 (for about Aud$600) then I upgraded to V6, but I don't think I will be making the leap to V7 as V6 does all I need.

It is an excellent package though. I can't imagine not using it in the immediate future. Any new software would have to do something pretty spectactular in the registration/alignment processing to surpass it.

[EddieT]

Thanks Ian. I will submit it AS&T for sure. I correspond with Jonathan (Nally) regularly and have apologised for not passing more images onto him. I really want to do more contributing but get carried away with doing things and end up forgetting. Too busy or too slack depending on which way you look at it :) I have a couple of articles in the works for future issues as well.

As for viewing, that was one of the reasons I got into imaging in the first place. I realised that I wasn't ever going to own a telescope big enough to see thing the way I wanted to see them, so photography was the only alternative !

[EddieT]

Thanks Exsfo,
SBIG cameras are a constant U.S. retail price the world over which means the AU price changes daily. When I bought my ST10 two/three years ago it was just under $16k, yesterday it was just under $11k. If I hadn't got such good use out of it over the years, I would resent that !

They have a much larger range now than back then so you should go to their site (www.sbig.com) and check out what they have now. The ST10 was the top of the line when I bought it, now it's second to the ST11k, their new 11 megapixel beast that was just under $20k when I priced it last.

Ok, you can get up off the floor now :)

[Exfso]

Reckon I would be stretching the bonds of friendship with "she who must be obeyed" if I spent that sort of money on a camera. But they certainly produce beautiful results.
I could imagine that camera "married to the Tak" hmmm tempting stuff.

:eyepop:

[EddieT]

Ah yes. I was flying solo when I bought mine :)

The SBIG cameras are much more than just a camera though. They are bonafide extensible scientific instruments with several integrated addons available; spectrographs, filter wheels, tip-tilt mirror systems and more in the works. Their self-guiding system (dual-chip on-axis) is what makes them special.

[cometcatcher]

Beautiful image Eddie.

I have a mate with an Sbig ST10 XME I think it is and he's having fun with it too. The single shot colour cameras just don't have the detail and depth that the top of the range filtered mono cameras do.

I'm still waiting for something similar to come out for around 500 bux. :D

[gaa_ian]

I wonder if the Meade "DSI Pro" will fill this niche :confuse3:
Not sure on the price, but I'm sure it is closer to 500bucks than the ST10 :P

[JohnH]

Absolutely spectacular image - wonderful and scary for some reason as others have said....

You got me wondering - turbulent hmmm...now to an engineer this means turbulent as opposed to laminar flow, this would in turn mean the gas has to be in motion at a particular speed...so I started to think about it and realised my thoughts were off beam - the motion is driven by the ionisation pressure vs gravitational forces for example, density is not constant, dust is present as well as gas. Time to hit the net, in doing that I found this paper on planetary nebulae which would seem simpler to model and, of course, these are popular viewing for us and I found the ability of the theorists to model their beautiful and complex shapes as stunning as the images....enjoy:

http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/19/article3/article3.html

[EddieT]

Thanks Kevin, one day you might be able to get an ST10 for $500, but i don't see it in the immediate future!

The main difference in price between consumer digital cameras and astronomical cameras and even between the same model of camera is the cost of the chip. CCD chips are graded by the number and type of defects in each individual chip. A class 0 chip is "scientific" grade with the least number of defects. These occur least often in the manufacturing process and therefore cost the most. I don't think SBIG even offer a class 0 chip as it's not on their price list, but they might if asked.

The price difference between a class 1 and class 2 chip is significant. Class 2 is the standard chip you get if you buy a camera without specifying the chip grade. Last time I checked most Kodak chips went from class 0 to 3 and one lower "Engineering" grade was available for development purposes. A class 2 KAF3200 (in the ST10) was over $7k just for the chip and a class 1 upgrade was about an extra $4k! So I hate to think what class 0 would cost.

Generally, chips made for consumer digital cameras are not graded and don't have to pass the stringent grading criteria.

That's why there's such a huge price difference!

[EddieT]

Ha! thanks John, I have to admit I didn't give the title as much thought as you. I just picked an adjective that described what it looked like.

But I suppose the dictionary definition "Violently agitated or disturbed" would apply.

Thanks for the link. It's very interesting!

[h0ughy]

It is completely unfair that everytimeyou post you continue to surpass all the other images you have posted. Absolutely amazing shots. What in the way of the alchemy set will you be taking to duckadang this year?

[EddieT]

Thanks Houghy, it's not unfair really, just the result of time, effort and money :)

As I have every year for the last six years, I will be taking the whole shebang! I pack up the entire observatory (except the shed itself) and setup base camp away from the rest of the guys so as not to disturb them too much with my disregard for total darkness...