Antares and Rho Oph. Region

[avandonk]

Finally a full night clear of cloud. Managed to get this before morning twilight.

Canon 5DH, Canon 300mm F2.8L at f/3.5 with 86mm diameter aperture in front of lens, Hutech LPR filter.

Exposures 20x15s, 20x30s, 20x60s and 26x120s at 1600 ISO. New fridge at -5C. Usual HDR method.

Medium size image 2MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2010_02/rhoM1.jpg

Large Image 8MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2010_02/rhoL1.jpg

When this area gets higher and through the zenith data will be better.
All the effort with the Frankenstein Fridge has seemed to be worthwhile.

Bert

[DavidU]

Just lovely Bert. I think that's one of your best shot's yet.
APOD material.

[prokyon]

Hi Bert,

very nice! You captured my favorite area very well.
A 2nd attempt when it is high in the sky would make sense. Its worth a try.

[avandonk]

Thanks for the kind comments. Here is a Carina done on the same night. Focus drifted a bit as ambient was 24C when data collection started and dropped to 18C when finished. I have the lens temperature thermostatically controlled at 16C so it had not kicked in yet.

Large Image 3MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2010_02/carnfr1.jpg

Note how well the dust stands out.

If the weather is kind will do some mosaics.


Bert

[avandonk]

The subtlety of the colours and dust do not compare to the cartoon versions of this area. All the stars have colour.

You all can decide which is better.

Bert

[h0ughy]

Lovely shots Bert, eta for some reason seems to have a tinge of green, is that how it is after the HDR treatment, actual colours? The Antares region is awesome, but it has a greenish tinge as well. Thought it was my monitor so I looked at both on a separate PC, its there in both, very strong in the eta shot, but subtle in the Antares one. Fantastic what you have got, i love the Antares shot, it captures so much that is happening there. It’s a beautiful piece of sky that’s for sure, probably my favourite DSO area.

[avandonk]

David it is most probably a combination of light pollution, gradients and the fact that a DSLR has twice as many green pixels as that of red or blue. Faint stars first show in the green signal as pseudo noise. This region is still quite low and only at about fifty degrees above the horizon at morning twilight start. I will get much better data when I can collect through the zenith.

I managed to get another set of data after the Moon set and before twilight this morning to make a rough mosaic. Same collection parameters as before except the fridge was at -10C. The improvement is obvious.

Medium image here 6MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2010_02/rho_mos1.jpg

Without the new fridge I would never get the faint dust with so little noise. It can only get better when this region is higher.

Bert

[dugnsuz]

This looks a lovely project Bert - the detail and texture you've got in these images is well worth the effort.
And it's low!!! Jeez, the zenith images will be special.
Doug

[multiweb]

Two great shots Bert. Eta's my fav. :thumbsup: