I caught a chicken!

[strongmanmike]

Well...part of a chicken anyway.

Surprisingly good weather last night (and tonight) in Newcastle. I've complained about it in the past, I know, but last night was just about perfect - no moon, no wind, no cloud and good seeing all night. The AP, FLI ProLine CCD and NJP mount all worked bloody flawlesly too :thumbsup:

I decided on the Lambda Centaurus "running chicken" nebula near the southern cross becasue while I had done an Halpha image of it a couple of years ago I had never imaged it in colour and the FOV with my camera then (SXV-H9) was pretty small too.

Simple LRGB processing was used in Astroart4 for the HaRGB and surprisingly little Photoshop was necessary and no noise reduction was used at all either. Because I was imaging in the direction of the Newcastle light dome I did the R,G & B when the object was near the meridian to reduce the gradients and it worked - I didn't have to do any gradient removal on this image luckily. I usually save the highest points for the Ha and Lum for maximum detail but I hate gradients - a good comprimise and becasue of the good seeing there is still plenty of detail revealed :)

We are about to move to a beautiful new home in Newcastle.... in the middle of heavy light pollution and with no sky access (ie not able to use the scope) sooo this may be the last image from me for a while..? :shrug:

Hope you like it? :)

Full frame colour image (1.9 meg):

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/93751806/original

Close up of the nebula details in Halpha (1meg):

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/93752388/original

Cheers and see ya all (well at least some of you) at SPSP in a month.

Mike

[iceman]

No access to the skies!? Argh! Surely that's a requirement when moving to a new house?

What will you do? Rent some time on a scope? :)

Beautiful image, Mike. The conditions have been fantastic the last few nights. The dark globules smacked near the little star cluster are brilliant.

[h0ughy]

Nice one Mike, certainly a sharp focus!! the dark globs really do stand out as too the pizza delivery to the ISS, LOL.

[RB]

LOL they're not dark globs, that's sensor dust on the FLI......:poke:

Gorgeous image Mike, love the detail and colour.

[multiweb]

Wow! Fantastic image! :bowdown: Love the black stuff next to the small cluster.

You said you got some clear skies in Newcastle? Lucky you. I was out last night in Liverpool until 10:30pm, all balanced, polar aligned, tracking through a light haze but more and more clouds rolled in from the south so I packed up :sadeyes:

[Peter Ward]

Mike,

You are in a different league.

Very cool.

Cheers
Peter

[marc4darkskies]

You're the man Mike - superb shot! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Cheers, Marcus

[Bassnut]

Very smoooooth and sharp Mike, excellent, sort of has a 3d effect.

[EzyStyles]

awesome shot mike!! i like the globs alot of details and so crsip.

[tornado33]

Gee those globules really do stand out. What is amazing is that funny triangular part in the middle of the HA shot, those striations are unusual.
I note youre not binning the RGB 2x2, guess theres no need to by the look of it :)
How long are the subs you use?

So you cannot access any part of the sky from the new place? Mines fairly limited, ok southern access from backyard from dec -75 to-10, then I have to move to in front of the garage to get to dec +30. Further north I have to squeeze netween shrubs on the front lawn for a very limited 30 wide window with powerlines in the view.

You might have to start imaging from the Newcastle Astronomical Societies Shortland site :) near 360 degree down to Horizon views, and not too light polluted for a near suburban site.
Scott

[Alchemy]

Cant believe the DETAIL......... not much to say im speechless:eyepop:

[spearo]

Woah Mike!
You sure know how to raise the bar for the rest of us!
Amazing
frank

[acropolite]

Mike, your chicken is truly inspirational. I can't recall seeing a more interesting deep space image.:thumbsup:

[sheeny]

It's all WOW!

Al.

[Hagar]

Great image Mike. The detail is magnificent. Focus is spot on.
A real work of art. And yes I like tha satalite trails too. They are there, why not show them.

Great stuff. Love it.

[strongmanmike]

Oh me o my...can't believe I agreed to this house :screwy: - has lovely views over Kotara and out to Stockton beach though :shrug:

Rent-a-scope??? :confuse3: Proably won't be able to enter next years SPSP AIC then :D



Thanks mate, you could have found out something really bad about the house for me couldn't you?? :mad2:...yeeeh...that's it! it's your fault!:whistle:

Mike
I hate Houghy



:lol: That problem was rectified, the camera is an absolute purler! operating at -35C all year round with 1 sec downloads of 11K pixels and very low noise, heck I am still using the same darks (all 4 of them) I took back in August and the smoothness is great.

Cheers

Mike



Mate I sympathise with ya! One good thing about living in a place where there is no sky access I guess?....no delema will I won't I? when it comes to deciding on an evenings imaging = simple answer every time "can't" :lol:...:)...:(....:mad2:



Well not sure what that means exactly Peter... but I am thinking you like the result..?

Thanks :)

Mike



Thanks Marcus, glad you enjoyed it :)



I was very happy with the outcome on this one and it went together so easily and effortlessly. The key is good clean data. Taking the colour frames while crossing the meridian (darkest sky for this object) helped here by reducing the gradient problems and it was a particularly transparent night with good seeing. I think good acurate flats helped too, I took the flats imedeately after each filter too so they were perfectly matching.



Yes a real feature of this object, cheers



No I don't bin the colour, probably should to get more signal but I like to have to do as litttle as possible when processing :P I have been doing 10min subs in recent efforts...mostly becasue then I can just keep using the same four dark frames I have been using for ages :D I am inherently lazy :whistle:

No sadly I have littel sky visible around the house. So where is the Shortland site then? Do memebrs have permanent setups there?



Yes I was quite happy with the detail, the seeing was particularly good for Newcastle (about FWHM of 2") and the superb tracking of the NJP mount helps too - I was getting average guide errors of less than 0.3" all night - the bulls eye guide star plot pattern in Astroart had the star centroid ploting out a nice tight clump in the central 1/3 of the 1 pixel radius ring!



Glad you like it Frank but I'm not trying to one-up anyone, I just love imaging and since I haven't been able to do much lately this result was rewarding :)



That's great! Yes it is a very interesting area but framing is important too, I wanted Lambda Centauri in the image but wasn't sure how the light ring aberations I get with the AP field flattener would be on such a bright star. It turned out that they weren't too bad and the bright star sets off the dramatic scene quite well I recon..? The luminance frame is a combination of the red data and the Halpha data and this is the most detailed of the data so the final colour image retains much of that detail. The detail in the Halpha only shot is testament to the narrow band width, the seeing, the exceptional optics and great tracking I had at my disposal, I was and am very lucky :thumbsup:




Wow thanks



The man made space junk trails remind me of the AAT shots by David malin from the 80's there were often satelite trails in them too :D

[richardo]

Man that is a superb result Mike!!
Glad the cloud and weather behaved for you since your moving to a place where the skies aren't so good.
Razor sharp, stars are pin points and just plain good all around.
The Bok globules just stand out a treat.
Top shelf swan song I'd say with no doubts!!

Wish this weather here would be a little kinder like this night you had.

All the best on your move.

regs
Rich

[Ric]

What a beauty Mike, well done.

The depth in the nebulosity is looking 3D in some sections and everything is nice and sharp.

Top stuff

[Tamtarn]

Thats an absolute gem Mike. Has to be one of the best deep sky images we have seen.

Hope you can get to some dark skies we'll miss your contribution here. At least we have your website we can visit can visit.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Rich, it's a great region to image and the Ha/Red blend really brought out the detail.

I'm out imaging again tonight funnily enough, in the same conditions...of course!! Sheesh..I'm moving so the weather is improving DOH!! :doh:



Yes Ric, the blending of the Ha data helps here but it is tricky to get right.



Cheers!

I want to keep imaging... just got to work out the best option

Mike