Keyhole Nebula (ESO palette)

[Peter Ward]

Hello Group,

Details: RCOS14.25 @ F15.8, PME, SBIG STL11k, AOL, Baader HA,L RGB set.

Capture: CCDops AOL guiding from 2 to 10 Hz.

Processing: MaxIm and Photoshop

Ha layering is always a matter of taste, but with this version I used a recent ESO 2.2m image as a guide for the final colour balance.

Apologies for the various iterations....but the most recent here:

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery17.html

[spearo]

Simply superb
crisp as can be without a doubt
frank

[CoombellKid]

Spectacular Image :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: of a spectacular object. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

[KenGee]

Very good Peter, giving the strongman the finger!

[Peter Ward]

:lol:

It wasn't my intention.....I'd still want the no-so-little-bugger on my side in a bar brawl :)

[TrevorW]

What can you say

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Ric]

That's a cracker Peter, very sharp and detailed.

Cheers

[Kal]

lol, this was the first thing that crossed my mind when I viewed the image too, you just know he is going to ask for an uncropped fickle finger!

Very nice image Peter, I really like the colour balance, and the detail is superb

[telecasterguru]

Great image, amazing depth. Just like being there.

[Peter Ward]

First up, thanks Tev, Kev, Ken, Kal, Ric, Spear'o, Coo'mo :)

To be sure, I used the "heavy artillery" to capture this image, but also threw a whole lot of data (3 hours worth) away due poor seeing....and this is a pretty important principle ....GI-GO ie. "garbage in - garbage out"

For the newbies on ISS- who aim just a little higher, take time to gather good data, i.e. accurately polar align, focus, colliminate, calibrate, track and autoguide.

With tight, round stars & bugger-all noise, you get a whole lot of returns in the processing!

Unless you are just having a bit of fun, eggy, bloated stars and noise guarantee a mediocre result.

Thus endeth the sermon. :)

[marc4darkskies]

Superb image Peter in every respect!! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: The Homunculus shows up a treat too - way cool!

Good sermon too.

Now ... let us pray :prey:

Dear Peter, who art in the Shire, hallowed be thy images, thy imaging be done in my obs as it is in yours. Give us this day our perfect tracking, and forgive us our blurry images, as we forgive them who don't have autofocussing, for thine is the Paramount, the SBIG and the RCOS, for ever and ever ...

... Amen, Marcus :P:D

[strongmanmike]

Ok Ok..you guys! steady on :lol:

Now your little surmon is all well and good Peter but newbies don't generally have an automated permanent observatory that allows them the luxury of being able to utilise every clear moment and thus be happy to toss less than perfect data when ever they please, nor do they have adaptive optics on a state of the art $70grand worth of 14.5" RC + robotic PME :rolleyes: ...Ok, I'm just jealous :P

Peter has great experience and skills and "the" best equipment for this so he can handle some pushing and poking :poke: :whistle:

Now, this is clearly a great looking image even at this relatively small size :scared::scared: :rolleyes:. Good smooth data and processing, very nice work Peter, the resolution looks good here but must look just awesome at fuller size :thumbsup:

I would love to see you display the following FOV..? Be interested in what detail you have extracted in comparison (shuder to think actually:scared:)

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/96105156/original

Let me guess?...have to wait till the David Malin Awards I bet? :doh:

Oh and I'm an ex-strongman so never fear :P

Mike

[strongmanmike]

:rofl:

Our very own Father Marcus

[madwayne]

Stunning image Peter and thanks for sharing it (and others) and your words of wisdom. As Mike quite rightly points out we do not all have equipment like yours, but certainly envy it and the results you are able to achieve with it. But anyone aspiring to improve their image quality, regardless of their equipment, should heed your words strongly. I know it hurts to throw out data, particularly when you do not have a permanent setup but as you say garbage in is definitely garbage out.

Wayne

[Peter Ward]

And now a reading from the Book of Python.....

And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less.

Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.

Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.

Five is right out.

Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

Amen. :lol:

[Peter Ward]

Yep, you'll just have to wait for the 16x20 print :D

[Peter Ward]

OK...I'll take that as an invitation to compare the two sets of data.....a rollover page can be seen here.

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery37ro.html

[Kal]

Hmmm, doing a blink comparison between the two images there is a star that is in your image that isn't in Mikes image. It is just to the right of the homunculus, around the 2 o'clock position (orange star). Any thoughts on this star?

BTW - I absolutely love how you have processed the homunculus in the image Peter - getting a good shot of that alone makes the photo worthwhile. Admittedly, I spent about 10 minutes looking at your image yesterday just marvelling at the nebula detail that I didn't even look at the eta carina star!

[bluescope]

:eyepop:That's all I will say ... brilliant Peter !

:thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

The same star can be found in the ESO's recent image of the same area...hence no new discoveries there :( ....as for why it's not in Mike's data guess you'll have to ask big Mike.

[Tom Davis]

Amen!!!

Tom

[multiweb]

Yeah! pretty nifty! And that's not even a 1:1 crop is it? :eyepop:

[strongmanmike]

YAY! you did it! I knew I could coax it outa ya! ;)

Yes excellent, not a HUUUUGE difference but about as much as I expected there would be given all the things you did to get this image - as mentioned in you soliloque :rolleyes:.

Funnily enough there is still some more detail visible in my version compared to yours in a few places but overall the fine subtle res in your much more highly sampled image is certainly better, which you would expect given the much longer FL, use of AO and the aperture difference.

Great job and you have some excellent gear dude :thumbsup:

Oh and the star is missing in my version becasue I didn't do any short exposures for the homonculous so I just minimised (did I do that???:scared:) big bright Eta in Photoshop, so this just removed the star in close.

Mike

[Jen]

:eyepop: beautiful picture Peter love the colors and the softness :) nice work
:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

No problemo...it's not quite full-res as I'm still working on the data. ;)



For sure, there are differences. I'd put it down to processing.

CCD imaging would be very dreary if we all processed data exactly the same way! :)

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Jen!

(& Marc & Tom). Softness?..fair enough... I guess after all we are really just looking a gas and dust ! :)

[Kal]

Dang! I thought it was a new star :whistle::lol:

Thanks for the explanation Mike

[jase]

Nice one :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Jase! ....both here and at Yahoo ;)

[Garyh]

Oh I love just reading the posts whenever Peter starts a thread! :lol:
But a seriously beautiful and crisp image Peter!
:thumbsup: