June Deep Sky Imaging Challenge - Images

[DavidTrap]

After the thread in the Website Feedback section entitled "A Monthly DSO Challenge?", Mike (iceman) has agreed to another try of a Monthly Deep Sky Imaging Challenge. Thanks to Mike (mldee) for starting that thread and all those who gave their opinions. I have offered to take up the "challenge" of running the challenge. So here goes nothing!

Targets for June:
M17 – The Swan Nebula in Sagittarius
IC4628 – Emission Nebula in Scorpius

After a bit of thought, it was decided to select two targets – one big and bright and one a bit harder – something to keep everyone challenged. (Initially, I will be choosing the targets. I'm definitely a beginner, and will seek assistance from various sources. Eventually, there may be audience participation to choose next months' targets.)

Many seasoned imagers will have done these targets before, possibly even this year - it would be an exercise in frustration to attempt to find something that had never been done. The challenge may be to image these objects with new equipment or try some new processing techniques.

The challenge is open to all comers. There are no classes or categories – everyone may post images for both objects. Seasoned imagers will hopefully provide some inspiring images, along with advice for beginners with more modest equipment.

Please submit all images with the following standard information:
* Scope: (+/- reducers/flatteners)
* Imaging device:
* Mount:
* Guiding:
* Exposure details: (include ISO for DSLRs, temp for CCDs)
* Stacking method: (Median, average, sigma, etc. Darks, flats &/or bias frames)
* Summary of post processing:
* Darkness of imaging site: (Good, bad, ugly!)
* Date(s) image taken: (Ideally the image will be taken during this month, but previous work is not excluded to allow for weather and other life commitments)

There will be two threads – this one for posting images and another to post comments.

The usual 200kb limit for files applies. Adding a link to a higher resolution file is encouraged.

There will be no voting on the best image(s) of the month. The aims of the game are participation, especially from beginners, and learning, hence the standard list of information requested. The “methodology” of this challenge is open to review, and comments are appreciated – please PM me.

Cheers,
DavidTrap

P.S. I've had a request from the visual observers. They are hunting globular clusters this month. If anyone can spare a little time to image these faint objects, they'd be most grateful - a slight twist to the challenge perhaps:

UKS-1...the dimmest at +17.3 mag, or thereabouts RA: 17:54:27.2, DEC: -24:08:43

AM1 (ESO 201-10)...the farthest at 400Kly, RA: 3:55:02.7, DEC: -49:36:52, about +15.7 mag

[jjjnettie]

My first attempt at the Prawn Nebula.:)
There is 3hrs and 20min of exposure time. 5 minute subs used. I'd started using iso400 but upped the ante to iso 800 later, but I tossed all of them in the pot to create the final image.
Darks and flats taken separately.
Scope - ed 80
Mount - heq5p4o
Guiding using qhy5
Camera Canon 20d
Software used ..... DeepSkyStacker and CS3
Imaged from a dark sky site on the 3rd and 4th of June 2010.

I repro'd this one again. This time putting the final image from cs3 through "Image Analyser". (does anyone else use this program?) Increasing local contrast and applying "Adaptive smoothing".

[batema]

Here goes for my first contribution to this site. It was recommended to me after a mate of mine saw JJJ's image the night before.

Scope: William Optics Flt 110
* Imaging device: QHY-9 Mono + 5 filter wheel
* Mount: EQ6 Pro
* Guiding:W/O 70mm with Toucam and PHD
* Exposure details: 12 x 10 Min Lum 1x1 binning, 6 x 5 Min RGB 2x2 binning. Qhy-9 at -20c
* Stacking method: ( Median using Deep Sky Stacker )
* Summary of post processing: ( Photoshop CS3 )
* Darkness of imaging site: (bad : suburban home site )
* Date(s) image taken: ( 5th June 2010 )

Mark :):):)

[allan gould]

I was interested to see how the QHY8 compared to the QSI on M17 - one of this months challenges. So here it is

* Scope: (+/- reducers/flatteners) 10"SCT with f6.3 reducer
* Imaging device: QHY8 OSC camera
* Mount: Hypertuned EQ6 Pro
* Guiding: PhDguiding using DSI II Pro
* Exposure details: (include ISO for DSLRs, temp for CCDs) 24x5min
* Stacking method: (Median, average, sigma, etc. Darks, flats &/or bias frames) No darks, but flats -bias-flat darks stacked in DSS (medium combine)
* Summary of post processing: Levels and curves in PS3 and slight sharpening
* Darkness of imaging site: (Good, bad, ugly!) Really ugly light pollution from BrisVegas 4.5 Km away plus a neighbour's searchlight pouring into the backyard. Thank heavens for the observatory
* Date(s) image taken: (Ideally the image will be taken during this month, but previous work is not excluded to allow for weather and other life commitments) Taken on Sunday 7 June 2010.

[TrevorW]

Target: M17 Swan Nebula
Camera: Canon 350d modified, WO F2 FR, Baader 2” Skyglow filter
Exposure Capture: DLSR Focus
Scope: GSO CF RC200
EFR: f/6.4
Mount: EQ6 Pro
Exposure Setting: Prime focus, ISO800 ICNR off Daylight WB
Exposures: 10 X180s, 7 x 480s taken 30/07/2009
Seeing: waxing gibbous 70% moon
Guiding: Orion Starshoot Autoguider using PHD with ED80
Focus: DSLR Focus
Stacking: DSS equal darks plus flats, no bias applied
Processing: CS3, reprocessed data for b & w

[bmitchell82]

took this a few weeks back after i finally found the astigmatism in the 10" mirror.

http://i700.photobucket.com/albums/ww3/brendanmitchell1982/m-17-post.png
warning it is a large file.

Ive also added a few extra things that people will find of use, as its not enough to just say ISO 800 for a DSLR as ambient temperature is very important. also for larger scopes wind conditions play a part.

Hope all find this informative and what can be done with a cheap telescope mount combination.

Target: M17 Swan Nebula
Camera: Canon 40d modified, Baader MPCC
Exposure Capture: Maximdl 5
Scope: 254mm modified dobsonian
EFR: f/ 4.72 \ 1200mm
Mount: EQ6 Pro
Exposure Setting: Prime focus, ISO800, RAW
Exposures: 4 x 10 min
Date: 8th of April 2010
Time: 05:42
Temp: ~13 deg start ~8 deg finish
Seeing: 6.5/10,
Wind: >5km/h wind gusts
Guiding: Meade DSI II + Skywatcher Finder
Focus: Nebulosity 2.0 and MaximDL
Stacking: CCD stack
Image adjustments: No flats, Bias or Darks subtracted.
Processing: Adobe Photoshop CS4

[DavidTrap]

Thanks all for the images posted so far - some great images and examples of what is achievable with different equipment. Looking forward to some more images after the new moon long weekend - hopefully the weather gods will be kind.

I've had a request from the visual observers. They are hunting globular clusters this month. If anyone can spare a little time to image these faint objects, they'd be most grateful - a slight twist to the challenge perhaps:

UKS-1...the dimmest at +17.3 mag, or thereabouts RA: 17:54:27.2, DEC: -24:08:43

AM1 (ESO 201-10)...the farthest at 400Kly, RA: 3:55:02.7, DEC: -49:36:52, about +15.7 mag

Cheers,
David T

P.S. I'll add this request to the start of this thread as well.

[bmitchell82]

if i ever get clear skies i can see if i can snap them. shouldn't be too hard in any case. I guess also that they are looking for identifying stars so they can make sure that they have visually observed.

[MrB]

So we don't need the "comments" thread anymore?
Mods, pls feel free to move my post there....

[gregbradley]

If its a challenge then is there an image determined to be the best? Or is it not a competition as such in which case why is it called a challenge?

Greg.

[jjjnettie]

Maybe "Target of the month" instead??

[DavidTrap]

Hi Greg,

Can I suggest you read this thread (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=61529) (sorry, it does stretch to 5 pages) to understand why this challenge is the way it is? Think of this "challenge" as a task to test one's abilities, rather than a contest or competition.

As I said in the original post, the methodology is open to review.

Cheers
David T

[Moon]

The weather in Melbourne has been terrible, but I was lucky enough to get a single 10 min sub each of LRGB and 4x20mins subs of Ha data earlier in the month.

I was hoping to get another crack at this before the month is out, but it looks like it might not happen.

* Scope: GSO 8 RC + TSRCFlat2
* Imaging device: STL-11000M
* Mount: Paramount ME
* Guiding: Self guide + MaximDL ~ 30 sec exposures
* Exposure details: HaLRGB 80:10:10:10:10 @-20
* Stacking method: There was only one sub for LRGB so nothing to stack! Ha was median combined, then Mean combine with L + R
* Summary of post processing: CCDStack (Calibrate, align, pixel math, stack, DDP) then PS CS5 for shadows, highlights, saturation and jpg conversion.
* Darkness of imaging site: Suburban backyard
* Date(s) image taken: 02-06-2010

Link to bigger version: Link (http://deepspaceplace.com/show.php?id=ngc6618b)
Link to last years effort: Link (http://deepspaceplace.com/show.php?id=ngc6618)

Since I'm out of the woodwork now, I'll try to post an image next month as well.
James

[bert]

Heres my crack at the prawn.

* Scope: Vixen ED103s f7.7 No flattener. 795 fl
* Imaging device:St4000xcm @-25
* Mount:EQ6
* Guiding:Ao8
* Exposure details: 60x 10 mins subs used, rejected a lot more.
* Stacking method: Darks only, no flats. Median, maxim.
* Summary of post processing: PS Streched, colour boost via luminance and softlight layering. Noise ninja used. Very light sharpening, light star reduction. Really struggled with star halos.
* Darkness of imaging site: Bad, lots of sodium lighting.
* Date(s) image taken: Saturday, sunday 12th and 13th June.

I tried for three nights to get this image with only getting 1. Once it was lined up and everything was running... the clouds came in. Finally it cleared saturday and sunday.

Brett

[Bolts_Tweed]

Had a crack at going deep on it. I had to knock back the red as is - theres a lot of stuff in the area.

Scope: Televue np 101is
Imaging Gear: SBIG ST8300, Astrodon LRGB filters
Mount: NEQ6
Guiding:Orion shorttube 80 + QHY5 + PHD
Exposures:L - 20 x 5min, RGB 6 x 5 min each channel
Stacked : Maxim DL - Median, normalization 80% - darks were done with CCDOPs in series as imaged - no flats
Summary of post processing: Initially done in Pixinsight, DBE, HDR wavelet, Colour calibrtion, etc as per Harry Page's tutorials (thank god for Harry), wasnt happy with the colour (too pink - my limitations - not PI's) so finished in PS - still not red enough but this is enough.
Darkness of site - Dark (Leyburn) only weather made the sky not as dark/tranparent as usual (slightly greyish to the naked eye)
Date imaged : 13 June 2010

Mark

[DavidTrap]

* Scope: Tak FS-102 with 0.75x reducer
* Imaging device: Baader modded 350D
* Mount: AP Mach1GTO
* Guiding: StarShoot Autoguider and PHD
* Exposure details: 20 x 450sec at ISO400
* Stacking method: Maxim DL - FITS calibrated with Darks & Flats, Median Stacked
* Summary of post processing: Stretched in Maxim - Gamma & Linear, Levels, Curves, Unsharp Mask, Shadows/Highlights, Saturation
* Darkness of imaging site: Pretty Dark (10km west of Astrofest site, but considerably less skyglow from Brisbane)
* Date(s) image taken: 12th June 2010

Larger version here (http://users.tpg.com.au/dctrap/astrophotos/DTM17.jpg) (~2Mb)

[h0ughy]

* Scope: 127Ed
* Imaging device:Cooled Canon 40D with hotech field flattener
* Mount:G11
* Guiding:Ed80 with toucam and pc
* Exposure details: 3 min exposures totalling 7h 48m over 3 nights
* Stacking method: Deep sky Stacker – lights, flats, flat darks, darks, bias.
* Summary of post processing: Pixinsight 1.6, DBE, Histogram, ACDNR, ColourSaturation, HDR, secret herbs and spices(guessing). Only resized in Photoshop to post here
* Darkness of imaging site: well it is definitely not a dark site, Streetlighting + Floodlighting.
* Date(s) image taken: 14/6/2010- 18/6/2010

I have added some more data shot through high cloud, and 1/4 moon affected data from last night - total time now 7hours 48min

[DavidTrap]

After listenting to comments about my M20 image, I've reprocessed this image with a lower black-point.

Larger version here (http://users.tpg.com.au/dctrap/astrophotos/DTM17ver2.jpg) (2Mb)

Cheers
David T

[Harryianpage]

Hi

No need to thank god , Just a kind word for my mother will do ;)

Its very hard to do colour calibration with so little background , but you can use a surprisingley little amount ( small preview ) and get away with it

Regards Harry

[Buddman]

I look at this being more of an imaging challenge than a competition (I'm just not a competitive kind of guy) and think that it is a great idea.

I have always been too impatient to spend lots of time on a single target but I saw jjjnetties prawn at about the 3 hour mark and thought that it was time to see if there was a noticeable difference between my usual hour or so and and a couple of hours of data. Anyway, 8 hours and 8 minutes of data later.....

* Scope: Skywatcher ED80
* Mount: HEQ5 Pro
* Guiding: PHD
* Exposure details: Canon 1000D, ISO 800, 61 x 8 min subs
* Stacking method: Median plus darks/flats/bias in DeepSkyStacker
* Summary of post processing: All I have done is curves and levels inPhotoshop CS3
* Darkness of imaging site: Good
* Date(s) image taken: 4/6 to 12/6

I intend to spend a bit more time processing but for now this will do. I was very happy with how it has turned out with minimal processing. I might have to take up the "data, data, data" mantra.

Adam

[seeker372011]

here's my result from yesterday. I was trying to solve an issue with my mount-failed-and so didn't bother taking flats and darks and didn't get the exposure that I was looking for

but at least I tried....

* Scope: ED80
* Mount: CG5
* Guiding: PHD
* Exposure details: QHY8, 6 x 10 minute subs (had massive problems with the mount)
* Stacking method: no flats and darks-stacked in Nebulosity
* Summary of post processing: discarded green and blue channel, and used only red channel-this is a H alpha image;curves and levels in Photoshop CS2, some selective noise reduction and very slight selective sharpening
* Darkness of imaging site: First quarter moon; suburban Sydney location, light polluted-but then a H alpha filter was used
* Date(s) image taken: 19/06

http://www.flickr.com/photos/91784720@N00/4716853140/sizes/l/

[Astrobserver99]

Target: M17 Swan Nebula
Camera: Canon 40d before I had it modified, IDAS LPS Filter
Exposure Capture: Canon EOS Utilities
Scope: SWED80 Pro f/7.5
Mount: HEQ5 Pro
Exposure Setting: Prime focus, ISO800 Daylight WB
Exposures: 1x300s, taken 23/07/2009
Seeing: Ugly, in Suburban Melbourne
Guiding: Orion Starshoot Autoguider using PHD with 9x50 guidescope
Focus: Live View
Stacking: None
Processing: Digital Photo Professional with noise reduction

[Shiraz]

* Scope: GSO 8in f4 and moonlite focuser
* Imaging device: QHY8 through MPCC
* Mount: HEQ5pro on concreted-in jarrah post
* Guiding: 50mm modified finderscope with QHY5(colour) - PhD software.
* Exposure details: 90 min total, 5 min subs at whatever temp the QHY8 got to
* Stacking method: stacked in Nebulosity with translation and rotation compensation. single flat only (it began to rain just as I finished set up for flats), darks.
* Summary of post processing: Nebulosity “curves” and “color scaling” used to stretch image plus slight morphological star tightening. GIMP2 to tidy up any residual imperfections and prepare for posting as a JPEG. Heavily cropped and re-sampled by 0.5 to fit posting requirements.
* Imaging site: dark and clear (country town), seeing about average and no wind.
* Date(s) image taken: 14-15/6/2010
* Philosophy: tried to use minimum processing and to frame so that the sea creature shape was obvious. There is some residual star shape distortion from fairly ordinary tracking, but chose not to use deconvolution to tidy this up in order to keep nebula as smooth as possible and retain the misty appearance of the scattering, particularly the golden tinge around the yellow stars. Background is probably set a bit too dark for a purist, but I prefer a bit of contrast.

thanks for looking

[Shiraz]

* Scope: GSO 8in f4 with MPCC and moonlite focuser
* Imaging device: QHY8
* Mount: HEQ5 pro on cemented-in jarrah post
* Guiding: 50mm modified finderscope with QHY5(colour) - PhD through camera AT4.
* Exposure details: 39 min total, mix of 5 and 2min subs at whatever temp the QHY8 got to
* Stacking method: stacked in Nebulosity with translation and rotation compensation. No flats, no darks. Discarded subs with really bad tracking.
* Summary of post processing: Nebulosity “curves” used to stretch image. IRIS to flatten residual background and tidy up distorted star shapes a little with RL deconvolution. GIMP2 to tidy up and prepare for posting as a JPEG. Heavily cropped and resampled to fit post requirements.
* Imaging site: dark and clear, seeing about average. Wind was a problem with occasional sharp gusts - not ideal conditions, but usable between gusts. Took 2 minute subs in the worst wind conditions, going to 5 minutes when the wind died down a bit.
* Date(s) image taken: 13/6/2010
* Philosophy: Processing and presentation aimed at showing the swan shape with slight reflection component. Took a lot of work to tidy the odd star shapes into something reasonable. Really need a more stable mount with this scope under gusty wind conditions. f4 scope helped a lot by allowing effective short subs between gusts.