Lousy weather improved LMC Mosaic Image

[avandonk]

Because of the lousy weather in Melb I reprocessed the hdr data of the LMC mosaic.
Full resolution 3.8MB
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~fmlee/lmcmos_hdr.jpg
Bert

[MrB]

Very very nice!
Wish I had broadband to view the full-res.
Will look later.

[AlexN]

Niiice pic!! May I ask what setup you were using to capture this? its one target I am going to aim for when im all up and running... I was planing on just using my 70-200F/4L or 135F/2L to capture it all in one frame... obviously going a longer FL has allowed you to get the stunning detail in NGC2070 and the rest of the star field however.

Its a top shot mate! would make a fantastic centerpiece mounted on the wall of an observatory!

[Chippy]

Very nice!! I would also be interested to know what setup you used.

[avandonk]

See this thread for details.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=25598


Bert

Here is a picture

[Matty P]

Absolutely stunning Bert! The Hi Res is magnificant. There is so many faint nebulae there.

Very well done.

[gregbradley]

Magnificent image Bert.

Rudely, I have done some more processing on it and it brought out a whole lot more that is in this image. It is quite something.

With your permission I can post it.

Cheers,

Greg.

[avandonk]

Greg go for it. If I worried about that I would not put up a high res image. You wil do better with a 16bit tiff. The original tiff is 120MB! There is no correct answer only the best approximation.

Bert

[AlexN]

Bert, Your camera! HOLY CRAP DUDE!! reckon you've got enough heat sinks/fans etc... what temps you running the camera at? -0°??

The lens sure is something too... what a stunner of a setup (if not somewhat odd looking to the untrained eye.)

[avandonk]

Alexn I can easily get 25C below ambient. The noise is almost non existent at these temperatures. I am totally insane to do this to this to a helpless camera. So far it has survived many trips to cold hell. The lowest temp has been about -18c.

The heatsinks are your general run of the mill CPU heatpipe coolers and work very well coolingtwo 80watt Peltiers. I am still in the process of perfecting this method. I have not lost my marbles. I have just got rid of a lot of noise!

Bert

[Screwdriverone]

Alex, what sort of a temperature is -0°?? :rofl:

Dont you mean absolute zero? like -273°C?

Classic

Chris

[AlexN]

no, i mean below 0°C.. ie.. -7° or so...

Ive had some experience with TEC's (Thermo-Electric Coolers) and Peltiers... even Evaporative coolers on PC's but never before have I seen such an overwhelming looking monster ! :D

[Screwdriverone]

Oh I see, now i get it.

Just dont say minus zero degrees around a maths professor or University major or they will probably beat you to death with their slide rules and pocket protectors. :D

Chris

[AlexN]

I know I know.. I studied physics at RMIT in Melbourne a few years back.. I always got in trouble for writing -0° instead below 0° during when we were talking thermal dynamics.

[gregbradley]

Here it is:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/99496394/large

I used Photoshop and a variety of things but mainly reduced the green background which is the bulk of the noise, ran a noise reduction action, did curves and a few layered masks, shadows/highlights,sponge tool/dodge tool to bring out selected areas of colour and brightness.

I think its a sensational image, well done Bert.

Greg.

[Matty P]

Wow, the additional processing has added another dimension to this image.

Just beautiful! :) It has brought out most of the fainter objects.

Thanks Greg and well done Bert! :thumbsup:

[Tamtarn]

That's a wonderful image. So many areas of nebulosity. I too had a play with the image in PS and there is so much more detail hidden in there. You have captured some amazing data there Bert.

Still lousy weather Bert so keep working on it. ;)

Barb

[jase]

Excellent work Bert. The detail in the FOV is memorable. Well done.

[renormalised]

You noticed that!!!:P:D

I thought I'd keep "mum" on this one:D

[renormalised]

Nice piccie, Bert:)

Greg, you'll have to show Bert a few of your tricks:)

[glenc]

Bert, that is a magnificent image. :eyepop:

[avandonk]

Thats a good result Greg. If you want to play with the 120MB 16bit tiff PM me your snail address and I will mail you a CD with the images. Unless you have somewhere I can FTP the file.

My personal taste is to try and show the full dynamic range without 'enhancement' but your version is more striking. The longer I spend at this processing caper the more I realize I don't know.

Thanks for the comments folks. One day I might get an image that cannot be improved apon, although I doubt it.

Jase at my light polluted site gradients are the main curse I have to deal with once the clouds have cleared. Clouds can be handy when they cover Melbourne and SE suburbs and if it is clear in Eltham it almost gets to the conditions of a dark site.

Bert

[avandonk]

The other trick that seemed to work better was splitting the image into RGB tiffs and using GradientXterminator on each colour and then recombining. That way there was no crossover between colour channels a far as faint colour cast went or faint real image data being unduly suppressed.

Bert

[avandonk]

I studied Physics at RMIT in the late sixties early seventies part time. The old Physics building was where Story Hall is now. When running long experiments one was prone to cross Swanston Street and go over to the Oxford Hotel which was just opposite to imbibe a few betwween collecting data. Nothing has changed!

We never used the the shorthand you use. It is most probably a product of shorthand induced by the pressures of the lack of time and the digital age.

Bert

[skeltz]

Nice going bert ,that camera has to be the smallest fridge i have ever seen:D

[AlexN]

The short hand probably was introduced due to people not being bothered to write something out completely after a imbibing a few :) :thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Email Mike (Iceman) for the password to the IIS FTP site (click here (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?iisftp) for the information on how to upload to the FTP site)

Upload your file there and then make sure you read the info at the bottom on how to get people to your file, it actually lives on http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/filename.zip (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/filename.zip)where filename.zip is the file you loaded.

Cheers

Chris

[avandonk]

I must have missed this comment of yours Jase. Yes the detail is spectacular for a 300mm lens especially at f/2.8. The so called noise is faint barely resolved background stars. If they seem to have a green tinge it is because a Canon CMOS sensor has twice as many green pixels as either blue or red. The theoretical airy disc for f/2.8 is about 4 micron. The Canon 5DH has 8.2 micron pixels so even accounting for all aberrations there will be undersampling. Just do a superposition with registar on a longer focal length optic image and get exactly the same FOV and do a blink comparison.

The Canon 300mm F2.8L has close too 100% MTF to the edge of a 35mm FOV and it it gets to about 90+% at the corner.

Also check out the dark nebula areas or out past the galaxy as there are no faint stars masquerading as green noise.

Bert