Animation of Asteroid Iris and close approach to Sombrero Galaxy, M104

[Dennis]

Hello,

Here is an animated movie sequence of the minor planet 7 Iris approaching the spectacular Sombrero galaxy, M104, as recorded from Brisbane on 6th May 2008, between 7:34pm and 10:21pm AEST (GMT+10).

This sequence of 30 individual frames was captured using a Takahashi Mewlon 180 telescope and SBIG ST7E CCD camera with an x0.8 reducer/corrector. Each sub frame was exposed for 5 minutes.

WARNING: File size = 1.7Mb.

Iris and M104 animation (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/Iris M104 Movie 01.gif)

Cheers

Dennis

[skwinty]

Hello Dennis
My goodness, seems as if there is no end to your expertise and prowess as an astrophotographer. I find it difficult enough taking a pic of M104, never mind M104 and an asteroid.
Very well done:thumbsup:

[allan gould]

Excellent shot and animation. You must be pleased with that

[sheeny]

Superb as always, Dennis!

I must say it took me a little while to find Iris as the gif was loading... I was looking for a tiny speck moving from trame to frame... I didn't expect it to appear as a monster crossing the screen!:lol:

Al.

[davewaldo]

Brilliant! Well done Dennis.

I love this animation, gives me a great sense of distance and 3Dness (:P)

One of my favourite animations. :thumbsup:

Cheers,

Dave.

[matt]

Great work, as usual, Dennis:thumbsup:

[Matty P]

Great work Dennis as always!

You should be very proud.

[janoskiss]

When I looked at the animation I thought this was a hoax - until I checked who posted it. Just the individual frames are amazing, Dennis. Well done!

[Dennis]

Thank you all for your nice words of appreciation. It was at times, a tough project, but one that was rendered less painful by the good hardware and software tools I am fortunate to have at my disposal.

Each 5 minute sub frame was quite noisy, as I was working at F9.6 and I really could have done with 10 minute exposures, but Iris was already beginning to saturate and bloom at 5 mins, so I couldn’t go longer; nor was I certain that the mount could do so!

For the final stacked “still” frame, I combined the 30 sub-frames using the “Mean” mode, so that the real-time motion trail of Iris was revealed as a continuous line. This final stacked “still” frame has a much better signal to noise ratio (due to the stacking process), and hence can be developed further to reveal the subtle details. At this stage I thought, hmm, this might make a good animation.

So, I generated the animation using a new approach; here is the story:

30 sub frames of 5 minutes duration were Dark Frame and Flat Field reduced using MIRA AP with each reduced frame was saved as a FITs file.
The 30 reduced frames were then “Median” combined in MIRA AP, which resulted in Iris being “deleted” in a final stacked “Median” image, as it did not appear in the same location in each frame.
The (final) stacked and combined M104 Median image was then DDP processed in Images Plus and a small deconvolution performed in AIP4Win.
This gave me a nice M104 and background with no Iris, plus 30 individual (5 minute frames) with Iris appearing at different locations along it’s path in each frame.
Using CS3 I opened the M104 Median image, the combined one which has a much better signal to noise ratio due to stacking.
Then, in CS3, I opened each individual 5 minute sub frame and added it as a Layer in the (stacked) final image, so the correct position of Iris in the 5 minute sub-frame was registered and Layered into the smoother Median combined image.
After 30 such (manually tedious operations) I had 30 frames ready to animate.
I saved these as JPGs and generated an AVI in K3CCDTools.
I then punched this AVI through an application called “Advance GIF Animator” and voila, the final animated gif appeared!

As Steve has already noted, it looks too clean and clinical; gone are the hot/cold pixels that blink on and off; gone are the slight alignment jitters and gone is the poor signal to noise ratio of each 5 minute sub-frame.

Cheers

Dennis

[Tamtarn]

That is just brilliant Dennis !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :eyepop:

The time effort and patience you spend on your outstanding and unusual compositions is inspirational.

[Ric]

A fantastic animation Dennis, a real work of art.

By the looks of it you almost captured an occultation of that faint star by Iris as well. That would been another feather in your cap.

A fine effort.

Cheers

[AlexN]

Awesome!

[RB]

LOL Dennis you should be a postman......... you're always pushing the envelope ! :whistle:

Superb work as usual Sir.

Reading the various techniques you used has left me in awe and reveals the dedicated pre-planning and meticulous work that went into creating such a unique animation.

I was not disappointed when I immediately flicked over to Spaceweather (http://www.spaceweather.com/) to make sure you were on the front page.

Congratulations once again.

:)

[Dennis]

Thanks Barb and David, Ric, Alex and Andrew, we’ve enjoyed a few nights of clear skies, although somewhat cool in the wee hours!

Ric – when I captured the last 5 min sub-frame, around 10:21pm, Iris had already crossed the Meridian, transiting around 9:30pm. I considered doing a Meridian flip on the German Equatorial Mount but in the end decided that by the time I had done all of this, I would have had a gap in the series, so I didn’t bother.

Its times like this I wish for a fork mount!

Cheers

Dennis

[peter_4059]

Great animation Dennis. The M104 background is also very clear. I was wondering why you didn't produce the GIF straight from the photoshop layers?

Peter

[Dennis]

Thanks Peter. Hmm, didn’t know CS3 could do that, so I just used my pre-CS3 workflow and tools. Time to read the manual! LOL!

Cheers

Dennis

[peter_4059]

It's under the Window, Animation palate. Very simple to use.

[Liz]

That's fantastic Dennis, great to see a LARGE Iris moving thru the same view as the Sombrero, many thanks again.

[iceman]

Amazing effort, Dennis. I knew you'd produce something great. Never disappoint!

[edwardsdj]

Wow!

[Rodstar]

What a fantastic idea. It inspires such imagination. Thanks Dennis.