SMC Mosaic with more data

[avandonk]

I managed to get nine images at sixteen minute exposures between the clouds. Five were of the top part of the SMC four from the bottom. You can see how where these images overlap (center ) the faint stuff is much clearer.

from this thread
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=48944

Full res image 6MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2009_08/smc+.jpg


Bert

[Octane]

Bert,

That's looking great. I can't view the full resolution image as I've gone over my download limit for the month and am capped.

Tuc47 resolved all the way. I can't help but think that there is so much more data there that could be extracted.

Cheers.

Regards,
Humayun

[mithrandir]

A sysadmin running out of download limit? What do we have gigabit networks with multi-megabit uplinks at work for?

Oh yeah - I have both of those at home too.

[Octane]

Andrew,

Working for the government, our Internet usage is quite heavily policed.

They want us to do work at work. :doh:

Most of the time, if I'm posting at work, I'm doing it from my iPhone. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[javier alves]

excelent capture avandok, and tuc47 it he make very picturesque.
bye and good skies :thumbsup:

[prokyon]

Very nice pic, I love this area! Thanks for sharing.

werner

[dpastern]

That's a wonderful shot of SMC. Are you going to add more data to it?

Dave

PS Humayun and Andrew - that's why it's nice to work as a tech for your ISP :P

[AlexN]

As others have said, the full resolution is very nice.. I cant help but wonder if the HDR process dulls the image down.. Whilst im sure it gives pleasing dynamic range in the brighter areas, does it tone down everything to create uniform exposure across the entire image, and thus, making the SMC stand out a lot less that I would expect it to given the exposure time..

[avandonk]

Alex here is an animated gif of three images. Bert, Gendler and Guisard.

You can find Gendler's and Guisard's images on APOD by searching for SMC.

Large Animated GIF 14MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2009_08/smccomp02.gif

The advantages of the HDR process are nothing is blown out and all stars even bright ones retain their colour. Faint nebs are also far clearer.

My aim is to show objects as you would see them with the naked eye if you could get closer. The dynamic range of the human eye is far greater than any means we have of displaying images let alone recording them.

The only way to get around this is by dynamic range compression.

I will collect far more data if only these cloudy skies would go away for a while.

Bert

[AlexN]

Thanks for that Bert. The Gif is rather interesting indeed..

After reading that your intention is to display the objects as they would be seen by the naked eye if we could get closer I completely understand, and think its actually a very good approach to astro imaging.. Definitely brings something different and interesting to the table!

Alex.

[avandonk]

After thinking about your comment Alex I had a futher go at adjusting EasyHDR. In the picture below you can see the controls on the right. When these are adjusted you are drawing on all the data from all the different exposures loaded into EasyHDR. It is better to get everything correct here as once the image is tone mapped and saved you throw away the ability to draw on this data. PhotoShop will not help at all.

Here is a 'better' version after taking your valid comment into account.

Full Res 8MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2009_08/smc29.jpg

And a new animated gif 14MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2009_08/gifcomp2.gif

I may have been stuck in local minima and it needed your shove to get me to a better one. I am groping in the dark with one hand tied behind my back and any help is much appreciated.

Bert