17 birds with one stone... :)

[AlexN]

Hi all..

Well... To kick off the imaging with the ST8300 and the 80/480, I thought I'd pick a fairly rarely imaged target.. I've only seen 3 or 4 shots of this posted on the forums before, and to my recollection, none as wide as this..

This pic has a bit of everything, dark nebs, emission nebs, star clusters, vDB-h Objects, HMSTG objects..

Heres the details...

Taken from :
25km North of Brisbane CBD.

Field centered around :
RA - 11hr
Dec - -61°

Objects Within the FOV.

NGC 3576
NGC 3584
NGC 3581
NGC 3582
NGC 3566
NGC 3579
NGC 3590
NGC 3572
RCW57e
RCW57w
HMSTG348
HMSTG399
HMSTG 343
HMSTG 345
vdB-h47a
vdB-h47b
vdB-h47c

The bright star (Top Center) is mag 4.56 - HIP54751

Center of this FOV lies 3° 57" SE of Eta Carine.

Image Scale : 2.32" Arc Seconds Pixel
Field Of View : 96.7 x 128.5 Arc Minutes

Acquisition details.
LRGB Mapped as L+R : R : G : B (240+15 : 15 : 15 : 15)
All 5 minute subs, RGB binned 2x2..
15x5m darks (B1 and B2)
10 flats (B1 and B2)

Equipment:
TMB/LOMO 80mm F/6
ST8300M @ -10C
FLI CFW 2-7
Astrodon I series LRGB filters
HEQ5 Pro
QHY5 + OAG Guiding.

Full field of view - 50% resolution - 3mb (http://www.pbase.com/alexn_astro/image/121133831/original)
Full field of view - Small - 256kb (http://www.pbase.com/alexn_astro/image/121133831/large)

Thanks for looking and reading my novel.. :)

Alex.

[Garyh]

Didn`t realize there were so many NGC`s in this.
Lovely field of view Alex.

[telemarker]

Nice shot :thumbsup: Expansive FOV, a colourful starfield and a whole buncha nebs to tick off the list :poke: What more could you ask for. :D

Regard
Keith

[DavidU]

Nice one Lex ! Well written info too.
Still no word from Gillman yet, I'm getting impatient.

[strongmanmike]

Looking good. What a great FOV, just need to get it to a dark sky now and really shoot the deep breeze :thumbsup:

Mike
PS. I can't believe that I'll have about the same amount of real estate with the AP and PL16803 (111' X 111') :eyepop:at 1.6"/pix

[TrevorW]

Crowded isn't it :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[spearo]

Lovely.
Not sure why you asked Bananas in Pyjamas to do your darks and flats for you though...
(B1 and B2)
:]
i couldn't resist
I'm envious
:]
frank

[AlexN]

Gary - I was rather amazed myself.. When I went and had a look around starry night, I figured it was maybe 4 or 5 targets in that FOV.. when you take into account vdBh targets, and a few small star clusters in there, and the separate designations for the different areas of emission nebulae all of a sudden the number of targets works its way up.

Thanks for the comments Gary.

Kieth - What more could I ask for? 10 hours of darkness a day would be nice :D haha.. Its really quite funny.. I'm a narrowfield junky at heart, yet I really love imaging with this massive FOV... having so much sky real estate can really put things in perspective..

David - Thanks, Glad you liked the info.. Gathering the info was actually quite a bit of fun, finding out exactly what I got in the FOV and going through the full res image and identifying them all.. I think I might continue doing that from now on.. Especially when I'm imaging a target that you don't see all the time...

Mike - Thanks mate... I have been wanting to shoot this target for quite a while now... First saw it when you posted the HST image of it a while back.. Thought to myself "I wouldnt mind shooting that" At the time I had a 1624mm focal length and an ST10.. Not exactly the right tools for the job... Now I've got the right tools I figured, why not make that my first image from the new camera in the 80/480?!
The AP/16803 combo will blow your mind, 111x111 @ 1.6" per pixel will be madness... Huge field of view, and the ability to crop out little snippets of the image and have high res close ups... Crazy... at 2.3" per pixel with my setup, I can zoom into 100% however the very finest of fine detail isn't always there...

Trevor - Space mate.. Seems like theres not a lot of it left empty mate.. :) If I've learned anything from Mr Tom Davis, its that even in areas of space you think are relatively sparse, There is usually something very interesting waiting to be captured...

Frank - Cheers mate, I got B1 and B2 to do my calibration because I was lazy and tired, I figured, they are still in their PJ's, so they must have just woken up.. They should be refreshed, so they can do the calibration frames! :) hahaha.




Thanks guys... I've got to say, I'm really really happy being able to capture something like this from my light polluted back yard.. I can only imagine what it would have looked like from dark skies with longer subs..

A big thanks to Stuart (Rat156) for the LPS filter... I didn't have to process out light pollution in this shot, where this target sits in the sky is smack bang in the worst light pollution my site has to offer... I'd say I could push out to 10min subs shooting East/North East.

[telecasterguru]

Alex,

I love the image and as has been said it is very crowded.

What a the dark nebulosity on the bottom right hand side? Any ideas?

Frank

[AlexN]

Thanks Frank..

The dark areas at the bottom right hand side are HMSTG339 and HMSTG343 (339 is the upper section, 343 is the lower arch of dust)

I am working on a version of this image with all the target zones marked and labeled with their respective designations..

Thanks mate.
Alex.

[telecasterguru]

Thanks Alex. A most interesting area.

[RobF]

Certainly an original effort Alex. Smart thinking to find such a suitable field for your setup. Looks great.

[Hagar]

Very nice Alex. Great colour spread in the stars. I just wonder if you are having a little problem with registration as the stars seem a little bit streaked when magnified. Just something to think about.

[Octane]

Alex,

Seeing you present this part of the sky has made me very happy.

It's always a great reminder of the things to come. A bit like seeing the M45's roll in around spring/summer time. This, to me, starts to herald the beginning of the best time of year to image. It's not long now.

Well done.

H

[AlexN]

Thanks Doug...

The problem with the stars is that the focuser has a bit of slop in it... It wasn't designed for the 2.8kg load I'm hanging from it, as a result, some of the stars look a little strange... top left/bottom right it seems the worst to me..

I'm working out a few different options to sort this problem out.. supporting the current focuser, installing the FT thats on its way etc.. A mate of mine in the USA using an FLI ML8300 and the 2-7 CFW said that even his 2" FT is sagging under the load.. This makes me worry a little.. :)

H - I'm with you all the way brother.. looking forward to summer imaging! :) Theres some fantastic targets on the way.. it's going to be amazing :D

[Octane]

Well, I did mean autumn/winter, but, all the same!

H

[AlexN]

ahahha.. so was I actually.. Just been caught up with all that summer imaging on the go at the moment that I got my seasons messed up. :D

I tell you what was spectacular... Watching scorpius rising just before dawn.. Maybe this year is the year that I'll get around to imaging the pipe nebula.. :D

[Tom Davis]

Nice image and FOV!!

Tom

[AlexN]

Thanks Tom, I've had a play in Starry Nights, I think I'm going to start imaging more with the 0.8x reducer... With the 0.8x reducer my FOV roughly matches your N12 + PL16803.. That essentially is what I want.. I've thoroughly enjoyed viewing your images, and I'm almost a full widefield convert... :) I still love narrow field imaging.. and have to get a rig together sooner or later, but for now I'm very happy with my massive FOV..

[Omaroo]

Excellent Alex. Good Doodad too!

3 weeks... I'm there! :thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Thanks Chris, And congratulations.. You'll love the ST8300 when you get it! I've been nothing but utterly impressed thus far. I've taken only 3 images with it, and thus far, image quality wise I think they are by far my best 3 images... Could it be that a mono camera and filters clearly beats an OSC? or more so that having smaller pixels, resulting in better image scale has had such a dramatic affect? Who knows.. Fact is this... I made a decision back in October of last year, and in hindsight, its perhaps the best decision I've made in astronomy thus far. Never has a piece of equipment impressed me so much... (albeit, this is more like 4 pieces of equipment bolted together... But you know what I mean..)

Cheers mate.. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with the ST8300 + your Taka-Monster rig! :)

[multiweb]

Nice one Alex. Very busy field. :thumbsup:

[Octane]

Haha, widefield wuss!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! :tonguepoke:

H

[AlexN]

Hell yea Humayun... I've really got a taste for this widefield wussy nonsense! I do still want a dirty great big narrowfield setup.. But I don't think I'll ever not have a wide field setup from now on... Limitless possibilities.. :)

[Paul Haese]

Colour balance buddy is the only thing that needs attention. I would be interested to see a curves adjust too just to make it a little more contrasty and punchy. Nice going. Good to see you imaging.

[AlexN]

Thanks Paul.. Working on a repro as I type this actually.. Addressing the areas you mentioned and a few other issues...

Doug was right, there was a registration error on the blue frame that was causing stars to look a little strange, and have the blue halo.. This has been corrected. The image currently is a lot punchier, and has a colour balance more akin to Rob Gendlers fantastic image of this area..

Alex

[rat156]

Stop typing, finish reprocessing!

For such an expansive FOV you are going to need very good registration, Registar or the CCDStack CCDIS plugin are the only two I would use. You may find that because your using a refractor that only Registar will work properly becuase it can distort the field rather than just rotate and scale it.

Cheers
Stuart

[AlexN]

Stuart - I've just hit a wall in the repro, and you've hit the nail on the head...

Field distortion is causing real headaches... Looks like I need to buy Registar... I can get the registration pretty good, better than before, but still there are some areas that remain misaligned..

You also hit the nail on the head over at CN too... I will need to refocus between filters despite the filters being Parfocal.. L and R seem fairly close (so close that I could get away without a refocus) however G is slightly out from L/R and blue is out from G..

This will make my imaging runs a little more time consuming, however I suppose personal struggle is part and parcel of the pursuit of perfection.. :)

[rat156]

Hi Alex,

Let me try your subs with CCDStack.

You can use www.yousendit.com to transfer the files to me. My email is rat156 and I'm with bigpond.com

That way I can try to use CCDIS to align your subs. I'd like to know if it'll work, if not the Registar is the way to go.

WRT refocusing, the only problem is that your red stars may be smaller than your blue and green, this is not uncommon with refractors I believe. Check the FWHM of a star in you images, make sure it's not saturated though. If the red ones are significantly smaller then you will have to refocus between colour subs or find a "sweet spot" for the colour. Remember that the RGB subs aren't quite as critical as the Luminance wrt focus. In fact as you will probably be binning them, I'd put a little blur on them before combining them anyway (reduces the colour noise).

Cheers
Stuart

[ngcles]

Hi Alex & All,

Wonderful image of a fantastic field mate. But you've missed several birds and wow, one's a biggie ... in fact possibly the biggest of its type in the Milky Way.


Best,

Les D

[AlexN]

Thanks Les, Would you mind filling me in on what I've missed out on in my list? I would be very interested to know...

Would one be a dense star cloud? I originally thought this image had odd background noise, but then I realised its actually LOTS of stars.. Deepsky stacker counted 2650 stars in the Lum image...

[StarGazing]

What a photo......... WOW is all that comes to mind :eyepop:

Well done AlexN, Alex :thumbsup:

[ngcles]

Hi Alex,



Nnnnooo, not a star cloud.

You missed Cr 240, Hogg 10, Tr 18 and Hogg 12 -- all O.Cs.

But the biggie is at the centre of RCW57 -- NGC 3603. Possibly the most massive and populous O.C in the Milky Way and 20,000 ly away. Westerlund 1 and "The Arches" cluster also vie for that title and a couple of others. NGC 3603 is the probable favourite.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/34/image/a/format/zoom/

Overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3603

An intensely interesting cluster containing the star Sher 25 -- a star that will go supernova very, very soon (in astronomical time-scales). Could well be the next Milky Way supernova.



Best,

Les D

[Octane]

Les,

You and Glen are fascinating resources of information.

Keep on keeping on!

H

[pmrid]

Alex, an image like this is a very eloquent testimonial for your skills but also, for the worth of a well-tuned HEQ5Pro. Those babies are much underrated.
Peter

[AlexN]

Thanks Peter, I agree. The HEQ5 is commonly seen as a substandard mount for astro photography... I can not for the life of me understand why. The only significant difference between the HEQ5 and the EQ6 is the physical size and load capacity... If you dont load them up, they can be real performers... As with all mass produced "cheap" mounts, they require a bit of a tune up and tweak here and there to get everything humming along how it should, however once thats done they are superb.

I love mine... I'll likely have it for a very long time.