Antares and the Rho Ophiuchus Nebula Complex

[iceman]

Hi all

This widefield was taken on Saturday night/Sunday morning, at our local new moon met at the Mangrove Mountain Pony Club.

It was taken with my unmodded Canon 350D with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, stopped down to f/4. I could only fit in 8x 400s exposures (with ICNR) before a meridian flip was due, so I just stopped there. It was almost 3am anyway and time to start packing up.

The camera + lens were piggybacked on the ED80, which was auto-guided on my EQ6 using a refractor and my DMK.

I've always loved this area of sky, and I haven't really done it justice - it needs more exposures and a darker site, but it's my first widefield image of this region so it's a start.

Better version here:
Antares and the Rho Ophiuchus Nebula Complex (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/mygallery/displayimage.php?pos=-691)

800px version attached.
Thanks for looking.

[renormalised]

Nice shots, Mike. But as you said, it could go with more exposures. Pity you couldn't have made them longer as well.... have to figure out a way of slowing time down (or the Earth's rotation:))

[Deeno]

Nice Mike. Very sharp.
Certainly a lot going on there.
What is the ISO thanks.

Cheers
Deeno

[iceman]

Thanks guys. I used ISO400, which is what I use most of the time now to keep the noise down.

renormalised, if I could stop the earth turning I wouldn't need to polar align or use any tracking! It'd be great :)

[Dennis]

Nice work Mike, it certainly is a rich, colourful and interesting region.

Cheers

Dennis

[RB]

It turned out nicely Mike.

I must admit when I was with you at the pony club watching the subs on the lappy, I really thought you'd get more detail from them, looked like there was great potential in there.

You've done well capturing a total of over 50 min of lights, it's such a pain waiting for ICNR though, perhaps you're better off using a set of darks instead next time and concentrate on getting more exposure.

Also I'd suggest you give it a go with 800 ISO and open the lens up a bit to around f/2.8 and see how you go.

Nicely framed btw :whistle:

Anyway it was a fun night.

On Sunday night, even though I was dead tired from the pony club, I managed to setup and do a quick run on the same region.
Haven't had a chance to even look at the data yet but I'll post it as soon as I get a chance.

[dugnsuz]

Great widefield image Mike - I love this area and hope to get some decent pics as it rises higher - this is the way stars should be seen!!;)
And, as Andrew says - Nice to see the artistic framing of the object and dark lanes.

That "nifty fifty" is a great lens - I've got the cheap plastic MkII version, but it is very sharp too.

You should get your paws on that modded DSLR you had access to and redo this pic for comparison! Do you do requests!!??:)

Nice stuff
Doug:thumbsup:

[iceman]

yeh Andrew I'm not sure - I could probably have processed it harder but am trying to resist that temptation.

When I compare with your brilliant shot (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=8964) from SPSP a few years back, it makes mine pale in comparison - yours with less exposure in minutes too, but I guess the higher ISO definitely helped. I was capturing at ISO400.

At f/2.8 the 50mm f/1.8 would have quite a few seagulls in the corners (at f/4 it sill does), but it may be worth it to get more light in and then just crop the corners :)

I love your composition too, to get more of the milky way and not just the edge. Even with all the time it took for me to frame it ;)

hmm looks like i'm gonna have to re-do this one :)


I can't wait to see it! Which camera did you use?


Thanks Doug - the 50mm is one I bought off CometGuy for like $80 or something. It's a great lens for the price.
I'd love to do it with a modded camera - I'll have to hit 33South up and see if I can borrow the camera next new moon ;)

Thanks guys.

[leon]

Love the widefield Mike, one of my favorite types of imaging, and you have done this region justice, well done indeed.

Leon

[AstralTraveller]

Yes you would. Just very very very slow tracking :P

[Garyh]

Nice result Mike!
I have to image this area every year when it comes around.
Was thinking about it last night while imaging M20 and looking up at Antares.
I usually go about 5-6min also in this area but use iso 800 but maybe your site isn`t dark enough for that long a exposure.
Very nice
cheers Gary

[[1ponders]]

Nice one Mike. Feels almost 3-D

G'wan be a devil, up your next one to ISO800 (and have a talk to h0ughy, he's probably got 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 modded cameras hanging around the place ;) )

C'mon up to Duckadang, then you can go for ISO800 for 5 min. (Or Coolabine, you'd be more than welcome ;) )

[Zuts]

Lovely image Mike. It looks like a very interesting area. So thanks for providing me with my next target :)

Paul

[davidpretorius]

beautiful mike

[Alchemy]

nice one mike..... id have bumped up the saturation just a bit more, but thats my taste not everyones.

clive.

[jase]

7/10 for composition Mike. Maybe give you an 8 if you had of flipped it horizontally. I know you're capable of much better work.

[RB]

Cheers Mike, lol my old thread you linked to brings back a lot of memories, thanks for that !.
I remember how cold it was and Houghy giving me advice on polar aligning the little mount and helping me frame the object.

Definitely try ISO800, remember you need to use whatever ISO that is suited for the object, the estimated exposure time and also take into account the ambient temp.
I know it's difficult to deal with noise and is tempting to go with lower ISO but you need to compensate then by using more exposure.


hmmm not sure what you mean, are you talking about vignetting?
If so the flats should take care of that.


The shot I did on Sunday night was with the 20Da and 85mm lens so it is a tighter fov, I'll post it soon.


Like Doug said, 'the nifty fifty' is a great lens for it's price tag.
It's one that I want to get too, makes a great terrestrial prime with sharp performance.

Definitely try this area again with more exposure, it's not as easy to process due to the high dynamic range.

:thumbsup:

[Prickly]

And with an unmodded 350D Mike - what can I say? A terrific widefield.

If you cant have a darker site theres always the artificial darkfield in pixinsight LE (dynamic background enhancement function). To me though the background sky looks nice and dark anyway.

Cheers
David

[Prickly]

And with an unmodded 350D Mike - what can I say? A terrific widefield.

If you cant have a darker site theres always the artificial darkfield in pixinsight LE (dynamic background enhancement function). To me though the background sky looks nice and dark anyway.

Cheers
David

[Ric]

Just caught up with this one Mike, a splendid widefield indeed. It actually reminds me of a jellyfish with all those dark nebulaes streaming off.

A top effort