3 from last night - 47 Tuc, Blue spider, Horse

[dugnsuz]

Hello all...
Posting a few from last night - clear in SA and no moon early on.
1. 47 Tucanae...ED80/Canon 40D on Skywatcher EQ5
PHD autoguided
5x300sec, iso400, ICNR on.
2. Tarantula Nebula and surrounds... as above but 6x300sec, still can't shoo the blue hue:P
3. Flame and horsehead nebulae...12x300sec @ iso800

All images stacked in ImagesPlus 2.80 then faffed around with in PS!

Not too happy with this little bunch - they're a lot noisier than I had hoped for and needed too much processing for my liking. :sadeyes:

Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[peter_4059]

The flame/horse shot is a ripper Doug. Also like the Tuc47.

[madtuna]

GORGEOUS!!!!
just curious..in the 47tuc pic, towards the edge of the pic at 3 o'clock and 10 o'clock what are those two objects??

[little col]

:eyepop: that flaming horse is stunning ,wish a had them under my belt :D

[Ric]

Nice imaging Doug, you've captured three beautys.

Well done.

[leon]

Cant complain to much about them Doug, not bad i reckon, keep them coming mate.

leon

[Hagar]

Hi Doug, The images look pretty good to me. Noise is a problem even with OCNR on. Better results are achieved using darks in your processing without worrying about OCNR. Another handy program for noise reduction is Noiseware. They have a free version which is quite good but of course the purchased version is better.

[dugnsuz]

Cheers all,
madtuna - not too sure the names of the 2 DSOs also pictured in the 47 Tucanae pic...I'm sure someone will oblige though.

[Peter Ward]

NGC 2070 simply isn't cyan....

Tracking. Focus good.

Stick with it!

[dugnsuz]

Thanks Doug - some swear by ICNR, some prefer darks. I'm taking a series of darks right now so I'll see how I go.
Noiseware - I've d/loaded and installed the freebie, I like it. One pain the PS plugin doesn't process 16bit images, 8 bit only in the demo version.

[astroron]

NGC 152 AT 10 oclock, NGC121 at 3 oclock:thumbsup:
Ron

[dugnsuz]

I know Peter - I followed the Tarantula colour related thread with interest, but that's what the camera gives me, so that's what I've got to work with!

Regardless of the colour, I still can't seem to get an image I'm really happy with of this object - always ends up too noisy and "fizzy" looking. Don't know if it's the region, my technique, both!:shrug:
Thanks for commenting
Doug:thumbsup:

[dugnsuz]

thankyou, thankyou:D

googled them straight away - both globular clusters.

[madtuna]

thanks for that..my google finger is broken:D

[Peter Ward]

Don't take it to heart. I'm being totally non-PC and am calling a spade a spade :)

Actually I just tried getting get gamma levels in RGB right in your image...it was a bugger...and I gave up due insufficient data.

As +80% is being tossed by the camera, you probably need to go much deeper, split the RGB channels, stack the red ones, and use just one or two iterations of the G & B......just a thought...

Everything else looks good.

[dugnsuz]

I've probably stuffed around with the image so much it's a lost cause Peter!
Thanks for the tips re processing - lots to think about
Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[EzyStyles]

great images there doug, what you can do in photoshop once the stacked image is loaded, open up levels, in the levels box bottom middle button, select that then click on a background and bangg colour all balanced! :thumbsup:

[tornado33]

Well tracked and focused images there Nice and deep too. Hope ya dont mind but I had a go at using Curves in PS on red channel only of the Tarantula shot. Curves alows red to be put in but without making too much of a red cast on everything else.
Scott

[Karlsson]

I too am quite impressed with the piccies, but something in 47Tuc struck me as odd... the two faint clusters are roughly the same distance from 47Tuc, whereas in reality NGC152 is about twice as far as NGC121, so perhaps it might be something else.... :rolleyes:

Recalling Terry B's post here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=288690#post288690

I followed his recommendation, and tried Vizier... what you have there in your 47Tuc picture is indeed NGC121 on the right, but the one at upper left is more likely an exotic little glob known as Kron 3 :thumbsup:

[astroron]

I am sure that it is NGC152given mag as 12p mag, and Kron 3 is very small .
I have observed NGC152 on lots of occasions, but have not seen Kron 3.
Below is an entry in the ARGO NAVIS data base from andrew Murrell.
.KRON3*|00:24:48|-72:48:00|GLOBULAR|11.6|H0009;SMALL FAINT STAR CLUSTER NEAR 47 TUCANAE;MURRELL-ASNSW NOTES DID NOT RESOLVE IN 20inch;AKA ESO 28sc08;DISCOVERED IN 1956;IS 8 BILLION YEARS OLD;SIZE 2' ;KRON 7 IS 13' TO THE EAST
Ron:thumbsup:

[astroron]

I remembered a post a while back on this same subject and I posted this image , by the way which agrees with the chart on the sky planatareum
Ron

[Tamtarn]

Great to see some more images from the 40D Doug. :thumbsup:

Tucanae looks good with the 300sec exposures, we must try some longer subs as our earlier image came from much shorter subs.

The Flame and Horsehead is really good and you have brought out a lot of depth in the detail of the image.

I wouldn't complain to much about Tarantula.
Our images are blue too as that is how the camera sees it. :P

[dugnsuz]

Thanks B&D,
repeat after me "Must go deeper, must go deeper!!":lol:
Cant wait till I get my WO 0.8x reducer/flattener - sort out the edge coma.
I want to push into that 10min sub territory - but there aren't enough hours in the night!!! Oh for the days of those 40x30sec exposures:P
I've had about 3x 3am nights in a row, got the dark circles under the eyes - starting to look like a panda...and rambling too!!!!:lol::lol:
"Must go deeper!!!"

Doug:thumbsup:

[Apocrisiary]

Hi Ron, Where did that image come from? I think NGC152 is labeled incorrectly. Karlsson is spot on...a very obscure little globular, Kron 3, overshadowed by that monstrous thing next to it. It is labeled as L8 in the Millennium Star Atlas. If the field was a little larger I think Kron 7 would be a little further up above Kron 3. The field would need to be about twice as large to fit NGC152 in the field.
There is a good article by Steve Mencinsky on the ASNSW site under ASNSW Member Articles: Beyond The NGC: "For A Fistful Of Globulars". Here he says "It (Kron 3) is not particularly difficult to observe - Andrew Murrell stumbled upon it with his 10" telescope from his backyard in Woy Woy, while Mark Blackford and I were able to see it very easily (from Ilford) in his beautiful 4 inch refractor." http://www.asnsw.com/articles/bngc/bngc4.asp

Ron maybe you have been observing Kron 3 all this time and not been aware you were actually observing a 8 billion year old globular in the SMC!

Cheers,

Michael