Antennae Total Repro

[Paul Haese]

My new project is to image the Antennae galaxy.

The image below represents the start of this project. I am really really happy with the guiding. I have got the OAG on the QSI working well at present. I don't know how I did it but it works and that is all that matters to me. I am still using PHD and this seems to work well too.

The luminance of this image is pretty good, the colour frames are not so good for some reason. These are noisey for some reason. I have done a noise control and blur to each colour but the odd spots of colour are not working so well on the image. I would welcome any tips that anyone would have for me.

I have included a crop of the image too. Lots of fine detail can be seen in the central regions. I am quite pleased with the detail present. The processing of course needs some work, but I will get the new data first.

Antennae (http://paulhaese.net/Antennae.html)

Antennae Crop (http://paulhaese.net/AntennaeCrop.html)

I welcome your comments.

[AlexN]

Good start - it definitely needs a lot more exposure to pull the tails out from the sky background..

Guiding looks superb.. If I were you I'd write down all your guiding settings and make sure to keep them somewhere safe... They work!

Keep at it mate, more exposure will make this one shine!

[JD2439975]

Without the arms these galaxies look like Gods man plums. :lol:
Those things really are faint aren't they, going to take some hours.
Nice project though, looking forward to seeing more of it.

[zipdrive]

Perfect guiding!:thumbsup: great start!!

[multiweb]

Great guiding indeed and it shows in the details you've captured. Real nice. :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

For those interested I have done a complete repro of this image. It still needs more subs but at least the arms are visible now.:)

[AlexN]

Much nicer Paul... A marked improvement. The core of the galaxies looks better now too... Coming along nicely.

[CoolhandJo]

Nice. close up and personal!

[TrevorW]

Very nice indeed Paul await the completed version in anticipation

[richardo]

The repro did the trick Paul.
Showing up some nice subtle detail now.
Guiding looks shcmick.

Rich

[Bassnut]

The repro is much better Paul, exquiste and tasty processing, smooth and detailed. Ive had a go at this, and those arms are very hard to get, youve done very well there. Guiding is smick too.

[alan meehan]

Great shot Paul lots of detail in there,what gear did you take this shot with if you dont mind me asking.
thanks Alan

[dugnsuz]

Fantastic repro Paul - what a difference!!!
The bright star in your original crop seemed to have a dark line of "mascara" around it - fixed beautifully.
Cracking image
Doug

[Paul Haese]

Thanks all.

Fred, I am a bit concerned about the background. The QSI does not handle the summer months well and I can only image at -15C. -20 or -25 would be better. With such high temps (yeah funny to say this) I am finding I get a fair bit of noise in my colour subs. I think I am gonna need the water cooling unit to drive the temps down further.

Alan, if you scroll down the page I have listed my equipment I am using. However, to answer your question, I am using the RC8 and QSI583WSG on EM400 mount.

Doug, I saw something just intersecting the star, but glad that there is not a problem now. There is a problem with the star though. I have a huge reflection to deal with on that star. I think the green and blue filters are shining back onto the sensor window. Might have to change filters (groan).

[gregbradley]

Great job Paul.

Nice detail and superb tracking, as you say you have got that down.

Your setup is working nicely.

Greg.

[Tandum]

Looking better there Paul. I also get reflections from blue/green filters on bright stars. I've tried 3 different brand filters and 2 different cameras so far and they were all the same :( Adding an LPS filter improved it? Have you got your sub frames up to 10minutes yet?

[Paul Haese]

Thank Greg

Robin, yep I have the exposures at 10 minutes now and am considering 20 minute subs for increased signal to noise ratio. Images will be brighter too, but stars might bloat a little. I would be most disinclined to use an LPS filter at my observatory, but it makes sense to use one if the reflections are large and very bright.

[Tandum]

Let us know how you go with 20min subs. I was thinking you'd lose star colour but not a lot of imaging going on up here to try things out and now a pair of cyclones are heading our way :help: Enough with the rain already ...

[AlexN]

If you keep your RGB subs shorter, and just increase the length of you Lum subs you should retain star colour... or if you really wanted to increase the length of the colour subs to up the SNR, you could then also shoot a series of shorter RGB subs and layer the stars in during processing to retain colour... Everyone needs to worry less about over saturating stars and losing colour.. Its a digital image that we spend hours processing anyway... just fix the loss of colour in the processing, get out and capture the longest subs you can! :)

When you blow out the core on M42, do you lower your exposure time to avoid the saturation? or do you employ different processing techniques to counteract the saturation with shorter exposures and some photoshop work? Why would stars be any different?

Judging by the guiding on this shot I dare say you could double your exposure time and still have awesome results...

Robin - I blame the clouds on you !! "Mr. I've-got-enough-ccd's-to-sink-a-ship" :) :D

[Leonardo70]

Hi Paul,

great work...nice guiding. I'm happy you have solved the guiding issue.

Ciao,
Leonardo

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Leonardo

Alex, what I will do for the remaining captures on this shot is keep the colour frames at 10 minutes and then do a heap more. The lum is ok but I will do some more yet, maybe another 16 to get another 25% more brightness. For future work on dim object (as this seems to be the only objects I am interested in at present) I am going to try 20 minutes on Lum and 10-15 minutes of colour. I take your point about processing too. Yes we do a lot of processing to make the image look "right", so star colour might as well be that too. It is the bloat that I am concerned with most.

Robin, you may well be right on the loss of colour issue, only time will tell if that is the case. If I use the strategy above though I think I might be able to sort this last remaining issue out.