Chamaeleon molecular cloud

[kosborn]

These images show a small portion of the Chamaeleon molecular cloud that I've been imaging over the last several nights. I'm not normally a fan of starless images, but in this case, the starless image shows the turbulent structure of the cloud that is otherwise difficult to see. It was a struggle imaging this from a Bortle 5 suburban backyard but I guess I should be thankful it's not Bortle 6, 7, or even 8 suburban backyard! A bigger image with acquisition details and a starless mouse rollover is on Astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/a76cig/).


Cheers, Kevin

[Startrek]

Kevin,
Great work and versatility using your wider field kit to expose this amazing region.
I’m not a fan of starless too but it does display the clouds in all their glory
Well done indeed !!
Martin

[Paul Haese]

That is a very nice wide field of that area.

[Retrograde]

Very cool Kevin, & well done from Bortle 5! :thumbsup:

[kosborn]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated. Even at "only" Bortle 5, there were some wicked gradients, but the new gradient extraction tool in PixInsight helped a lot!

Cheers, Kevin

[TrevorW]

Nicely done not seen this one before :)

[Bodon]

Wow nice photo mate!

[kosborn]

Thanks guys.

There's something about the structure and 3D appearance of a dark nebula that really grabs me. I was hoping to arrange an unofficial star party last weekend at my favourite dark sky site to capture this (the old Orroral Valley Tracking station 40 minutes south of Canberra) but unfortunately weather got in the way. I'm in the middle of capturing another part of the Chamaeleon molecular cloud at the moment which includes reflection nebulae. These clear autumn nights are great for astrophotography, although with the waxing moon and my Bortle 5 suburban site, I might have to wait until next new moon to finish it!

Kevin

[Ryderscope]

That’s fantastic Kevin and I agree that this is a good example of where starless images can contribute a lot in being able to appreciate the extent of the fine structures in the background :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

That's excellent Kevin, especially from a suburban sky, holds up very well, even when viewed at full resolution. Something about dusty images, they looks so cool, a great result :thumbsup:

Hmm? :question:....must get the old FSQ and PL16803 humming again one of these days, dark skies are made for fields like this :)

Mike

[kosborn]

Thank you both.

Mike, with that equipment and your altitude and dark skies, I would very much like to see a dusty pic from Eagleview.

[gregbradley]

A wonderful image. I'd like to image that but it looks like it will take some time to accumulate.

Time to get my CFF105 F6 out and Proline out. I had it nearly up and running the other day at my dark site with nearly perfect seeing for 4 days and no clouds. But alas my spare laptop would not connect with the camera.

I am used to road blocks and having to work around them. It's part of astrophotography.

This area is worth the effort.

Greg.

[PRejto]

Lovely image! Have you considered a third version where the stars are reduced?


(Adam Block has a nice way to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e46UH_y7o48)

Peter

[Dave882]

Marvellous detail in those dust clouds. Beautiful!!

[kosborn]

Thanks guys. Peter, I will certainly look at that Adam Block video. I did try to use morphological transformation to shrink the stars, but it made them look really ugly!

Kevin

[kosborn]

Thanks Greg. I look forward to seeing your image once you get all the equipment talking to each other. Road blocks are definitely an essential part of astrophotography. It's amazing how you can do the same thing in exactly the same way on two different nights, but have it completely fail on one of those nights for no apparent reason!

Kevin

[AlexN]

Awesome!!

I've been meaning to point to one of these dusty targets but my usual setup location prevents targets much past -70° Dec.

Do you find that you have any tracking difficulty this close to the pole?

[kosborn]

Thanks Alex.

I'm a very long way south compared to you, so Chamaeleon sits much higher in the sky for me. The only challenge is the neighbour's oak tree which is immediately below the south celestial pole! With good polar alignment, I can get around 0.5" RMS error tracking according to PHD2. The Esprit100 and ASI2600mc I used for this image gives me a pixel scale of about 1.4"/pixel, so the stars are nice and pin point at that error, and I could still tolerate a much higher tracking error without really affecting the image too much.

I've recently converted to NINA for imaging which has a very accurate 3 point polar alignment plugin. It also has a great framing wizard that lets you search by object types and altitude (e.g. dark nebulae above -70° Dec).

Cheers, Kevin