Like Stevie Wonder shooting archery....

[Tom Davis]

....is how I feel sometimes when I try to image the more obscure dust clouds along the galactic plane. My goal in these images is to illustrate the faint dust that is not often seen. This dust seems to be best seen near reflection nebulae (makes sense) but it has been poorly mapped and so when imaging it is hard to know how to frame the image. Pointing the mount to the cataloged reflection nebula does not always center the extent of the dust.

Here is an image of vdB 123 in Serpens. As you can see, even though vdB 123 near the center of the image, once again there is more dust that would have been nice to see in better detail than what can be provided by the OSC data.

http://www.tvdavisastropics.com/astroimages-1_00008a.htm

I know it is sometimes "artsy" to have a portion of your subject extend off the canvas, so I'm going to say that was my intent! http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Anyway, I think it turned out pretty well, and my goal of demonstrating reflective dust in the region has been illustrated.

Tom

[gregbradley]

Dark and brooding. Like the new Harry Potter movie.

Nicely done.

Greg.

[TheDecepticon]

Very cool!:thumbsup:

[renormalised]

Very nicely done there, Tom. Are my eye's deceiving me or is that a very small emission neb in the centre of that dark cloud??. Might just be the background showing through.

[TrevorW]

Very nice Tom :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Alchemy]

both images look good... not one i recognise instantly, which is good

nice work


clive

[Tamtarn]

Very nice images Tom, 9.8 hours that's a lot of data.

[dugnsuz]

That's your Master Blaster Tom!!

[multiweb]

Very cool Tom. Another dust bust :thumbsup: How do you process to bring up the details in the dark areas like that?

[Tom Davis]

I'm giving a presentation at the 2009 Astroimaging Conference in San Jose, CA on this very topic and I'll post my presentation (Powerpoint) after I give it. My work flow is pretty straight forward (although I'm still modifying it somewhat) and I try to stick to easy processing steps.

Tom

[multiweb]

Cool - looking forward to it. :thumbsup:

[Tamtarn]

People like yourself sharing your knowledge of processing skills certainly helps us all gain more experience.

Thanks for informing us of your presentation Tom we look forward to seeing your post later in the year.

[Octane]

Tom,

:eyepop:

Another 5 Internets to you, sir.

Just incredible how you get that smokey look. I, also, would welcome your wealth of knowledge in the form of a presentation.

Regards,
Humayun