Sagittarius Trio of Nebula

[EddieT]

Hi,
It's been a while since I posted anything, but I've been slowly processing numerous images from the last year.

This is one was taken with Louie A's FS60 which he gratiously loaned me for a few months and my QHY8 camera from my backyard here in Surfers paradise.

4 hours worth of 10 minute exposures taken on the 10th July this year.

http://astroshed.com/miscpics/sagm.jpg

The field covered is 3.8 x 2.5 degrees.

Hope you like it!

Eddie

[Jeffkop]

That is a great image Eddie, another truly unique take on a reasonably well photographed area. Looks in all aspects astrophotographic wise ... Excellent

[Octane]

Eddie,

Remarkable image. Beautifully processed, too; the detail in the nebula to the left of M8 is exquisite.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with DSLRs, but, would you say that the QHY8 operates similarly to a DSLR set to ISO-100?

Where is Louie nowadays? I have not heard from him since last year.

Regards,
Humayun

[Kevnool]

Very nice to my eyes ...cheers Kev.

[seeker372011]

the dark lanes are the highlight of a remarkable image..

[gregbradley]

Fabulous image Eddie.

Greg.

[Hagar]

Wonderful image Eddie, what a magnificent field of view with that little scope. How on earth do you focus with such small targets in such a wide field?

Beautiful image.

[iceman]

Stunning image, Eddie! Great to see you back again. I look forward to more.

[Lester]

That is a standout image, with such contrast from dark lanes to coloured nebula.

Well done Eddie.

[Deeno]

Lovely!!
Wish I could do that.

[Garyh]

Nice result and well framed!
Good job Eddie! :thumbsup:

[EddieT]

Many thanks to you all for your very nice comments!

Some answers...

Octane: Sorry but I have absolutely no experience with DSLRs, so can't say what the relationship is between a DSLR ISO setting and an OSC camera. If Gain is similar, I set mine to 50.

Louie is still around though very busy I think these days.

Hagar: I focus by the numbers. Usually with a Robofocus, but because the FS-60 wasn't mine and I only had it for a little while, I didn't get to mount an RF motor on it, so had to focus manually. But still by the numbers.

I do a rough focus in highly binned mode (4x4 with the QHY8), using very fast exposures, say 1 second and turn the focus knob slowly, just watching the stars in the resulting image on-screen. When it's close to being focused, I'll sub-frame the brightest star into a very small frame, switch to 1x1 binning (unbinned) and take as fast images as the possible, 1 second or faster, then tweak the focus knob while watching the numbers on screen until the focus sharpeness is maxed (in CCDSoft) or the FWHM is minimised (in Maxim DL). This usually gets it very accurate.

Of course I went to bed after it started taking images (and checking the cloud patterns), so from then it was up to the little scope to not shift focus for the rest of the night, which it didn't, to its credit!

Many thanks again for all your gratious comments :)

[Craig_L]

Wonderful image Eddie which gives me a new perspective on this area. Did you use a flattener/reducer on the Tak? Craig

[glenc]

Wow, thanks Eddie. :thumbsup:

[RB]

Beautiful image Eddie and nice to see your work again.

:thumbsup:

[winensky]

A beautiful and unique perspective on this region. Love the dark areas. Well done!:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

You have opted for some strong contrast in this image but a very nice job, that region is always nice to look at, you should visit here more often mate!

Sigh...I miss your close-up Keyhole.....:(

:P

Mike

[suma126]

Very Very Nice Just Show,s How Many Stars Are Up There.

[EddieT]

Thanks people!
Craig, yes Louie sent up the FS-60 flattener as well. If I remember rightly it increased the focal length very slightly...I didn't measure the scale difference accurately, and I don't think I had it exactly the correct distance. Without the flattener the corners were quite terrible, but with it made the world of difference!

Mike! How is it mate!....Ha my long focal-length days are behind me I think. I can't afford equipment to take me to the next level, so I've opted for more wide-field. I have a Tak e180 on the way and am doing some experimenting with medium format lenses.....so its wide field for me!

[Phil]

stunning shot love it.
Phil

[multiweb]

Wow! Great picture. SUch a huge field but the contrast, colors and details are spot on.:eyepop: What program do you stack with?

[EddieT]

Thanks Phil! and Multi :)

I image capture with CCDSoft, calibrate, register, align, noise reduction and combine with CCDStack, some minor wavelet and background processing with PixInsight and final tweaking of levels and curves with Photoshop CS2, using Fitsplug of course :)

[multiweb]

I'm not familiar with FitsPlug. What's the features/difference with the NASA FITS Liberator importer?

[EddieT]

Fitsplug was written by me and was around long before Liberator. For 7 years it was only the Fits plugin for Photoshop that was available.

Liberator is a strict FITS importer whereas Fitsplug does things that are more tailored to amateurs that dont strictly adhere to the FITS spec.

The main differences are:
- It's completely transparent. Images are loaded as-is with no intermediate interface, so bulk loading FITS images is easy.
- loads 3-plane RGB FITS files as RGB colour images, Liberator requires a seperate PS Action to recombine the colour planes into an RGB image.
- Fitsplug is also a FITS exporter allowing any loaded image to be saved as FITS.
- Fitsplug is a commercial product that sells for USD$30

Fitsplug is also recognised by the FITS committee as a valid FITS reader and is listed alongside Liberator as an available FITS reader for Photoshop on all the official supported FITS application listings.

That's the story of Fitsplug!

[multiweb]

Cool. Is there a download version to trial anywhere? Love your site btw. Stacks of material and galleries in there :thumbsup:

[EddieT]

Thanks! 11 years of accumulated stuff there! Getting a bit behind on the updates lately though!

There is shareware version of the plugin, but it includes nags and doesn't support 32-bit or RGB fits, only mono 8 and 16-bit images.

http://fitsplug.com

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the shareware download link.

[marc4darkskies]

Exquisite image there Eddie! :thumbsup::thumbsup:



You've sold me!! You'll be getting my $30 very soon! :)

Cheers, Marcus

[EddieT]

Many thanks !



Ha ha, well I hope it didn't sound too much like an advertisement! I was only answering a question! Honest :)

Thanks again Marcus.

[winensky]

Re FITS Liberator:



I was wondering why I couldn't load my LRGB FITS from Maxim into PS. I have been combining and aligning my separate converted L,R,G and B images as layers manually in PS. Thanks for the info.

[EddieT]

No problem at all!

The reason for this is that there is no formal specification for RGB images (no header keyword exists) in the FITS spec. To interpret 3-plane images as RGB, requires an assumption to be made about the data when it is read. The FITS spec does not provide well for assumptions, aiming at determining the file contents and format as determined by data in the header. Therefore it is not possible to determine if a file contains an RGB image purely from specified keywords.

The ESA Liberator guys were asked about this when Liberator 1 came out and they flattly refused to support it directly, for the reasons above. It is a strict FITS implementation.

One of the benefits of writing your own software, is that it doesn't have to go through a committee :)

[multiweb]

Yeah I figured given the amount of stuff you must have been at it for a few years :whistle:

It's freaky though. I was looking at your interactive milkyway map and I'm thinking this is EXACTLY what I planned to do. Was weird to actually see it done. :eyepop: Anyway I'm buying the plugin too. I'm sold.

[allan gould]

Anything very well done draws admiration. Great photo Eddie - always a new perspective on an old favorite, the mark of someone creative

[EddieT]

Hi Allan,
Many thanks for the kind words! I'm really glad this image has been so well received by so many!

All the best

Eddie

[Peter Ward]

Eddie! (the magnificent)

Cool.

Peter

[EddieT]

Shucks Peter, I'm blushing ....not enough for a blushing emoticon however!
Thanks mate! :)

[atalas]

Wonderful work Eddie ! lots of depth dude.

[gregbradley]

A wonderful image Eddie.

Greg.

[bluescope]

Haven't seen this wide a fov of this region before, the dark lanes look great Eddie.

:thumbsup:

[Jen]

:eyepop: very nice pic there Eddie :thumbsup: there is some nice pics on your site too ;)