M78 now with 15.9 hours (SID Time)

[Paul Haese]

Hi all,

well the new mount is installed and this image was captured using it. Lovely mount to use and it seems to be everything a PME is touted as being.

This image is 11.7 hours worth of data taken during the last new moon cycle. There is still some noise but overall I am quite happy with it now.

Click here (http://paulhaese.net/M78QSITAK102.html)for image.

Comments welcome.

Edit now with 15.9 hours of data added, plus a new SID

[Moon]

Guiding looks good :)

[Lester]

Look at the detail in that; thanks for the view Paul. Looks like a face in the main reflection nebula, with only 1 eye. Good to see you getting top results with the new mount too. All the best.

[allan gould]

Paul
Thays beautiful - really inspiring. Glad you got some time and clear skies.

[TrevorW]

The combination of mount/camera and scope have come togethor to produce a really superb image, amazing star colour, with dark lanes and whispy dust a truly inspirational vista of an often overlooked target.

[multiweb]

That looks great Paul. Gotta be stoked with that! Insane details. Top shelf. :thumbsup:

[jjjnettie]

Beautiful work Paul.

[Jeffkop]

How good is that !!!
I'm not sure I have seen an M78 here before. If I have it wasnt the same framing as this. Its a great image Paul ... No doubt your new purchase is going to deliver eh !!! ... I feel the smile.

[DavidU]

Really top effort Paul.That's great equipment you have.:thumbsup:

[Hagar]

Lovely Paul, I'm glad the mount has been everything you hoped for. The stars are definitely very nice and round.

[Alchemy]

Nice, it all comes down to lots of data to work with to bring out the details, I'm surprised at the amount of Ha at the left, but it looks ridgy didge the extra reflection popping from it looks good too

[h0ughy]

you can see time spent on this is worth it

[alan meehan]

Nice work PAUL the pme is a bulldozer ,great shot,11.7 hrs thats really some data you have collected.
AL

[sadia]

Very very nice Paul, will be waiting to see what happens once you add additional data to this already amazing image.

[marc4darkskies]

Excellent Paul! Very nice image! Colours are great and given your modest aperture, you've got to be happy with the depth you've achieved!! Maybe you've pushed the data too hard for your S/N (hence the noise) but the overall impact of the image is good. I doubt that a mere 5 extra hours of data will help too much though - you'd probably need to double it to see a significant improvement in S/N.

Cheers, Marcus

[Rodstar]

Hi Paul, great effort, lots of patience in that image!

I am interested in the details at either side of the image. Usually when one visually observes M78, the two brightest patches are evident, but under particularly dark and still conditions at Coonabarabran the year before last, I recall seeing a third area of brightness. I suspect it may have been the starlight peeking through the dark cloud at far right of the image, but it may have been the lit-up patch at far left. I will keep this image in mind the next time I get under dark skies with M78, and try to get to the bottom of it!

[strongmanmike]

Hi Paul so this is wher's ya been huh? ;)

Wow, that's a view :eyepop:some great colours and the Ha has been showcased nicely :thumbsup:. I think M78 suits a wider feld like this, the area is so interesting.

It's a great shot buuuut beeeecaaaaause I know you like constructive critisism ;) and have asked for comments I'll give you some feeedback :thumbsup:. It is a good idea to look at an image for a while, even going away and coming back before passing comment, so I have. My first impressions when it openned were that it was over sharpened and as such a little flat looking with a distinct mottling in much of the image too. I think this has resulted in the loss of the true photographic quality an epic effort like this deserves..? I may be wrong but this outcome looks to be from hard processing rather than lack of signal..?

That's all the vaguely negative feedback though...overall it really is an amazing looking image, back it off a tad and it will be an even finer image IMO :thumbsup:.

Mike

[CoolhandJo]

Lovely image. Great detail

[Stevec35]

Great detail Paul. I prefer a slightly softer look to this nebula but that's just me I guess.

Cheers

Steve

[gregbradley]

Wow, you've gone really deep with this one. Fabulous amount of detail. I too would prefer a softer look but this is good from the viewpoint of detail which you have gotten plenty of. Dimmer areas could use a bit of smoothing rather than more data. A mask to allow the dim areas only to be gaussian blurred would handle that easily.

Congrats on your new mount. Not that your EM400 was a problem but it should make life getting round stars a bit easier. Let me know if you can work out a way to put a timer on it as that would be useful for me. I was thinking of a Bunnings power timer as one solution but there may be software solutions for it.

The Ha on the left is the edge of Barnards Loop. There is also a nice LDN object not far to the left as well which looks a bit like a cometary globule.

I have a mosaic I have done of this whole area catching most of the loop which is very extensive.

Greg.

[zipdrive]

Great capture, that new mount is working well:thumbsup:

[Ken Crawford]

Excellent image Paul, I knew you would be happy with the ME but I am thrilled to hear you are enjoying it. The results are fantastic.

Kindest Regards,

[Paul Haese]

Thanks all for the comments and observations.

Marcus, Mike and Greg; the main problem with the image is that the signal is not high enough to get over the noise related issues. Even 15 minute subs in RG and 20 min in L and B was not enough to get over the problem. I had to use several runs of guassian smoothing to get around the errant noise. I will take a look at this again sometime as I tend to agree with Mike's comments in that it looks a little flat. The smoothing sort of killed the photographic quality some what.

I was also careful not to over process the data and did a lot of selective sharpening to avoid this issue. It might look a little hard but that might be the noise just creeping in a little to give that edgy appearance.

I don't think there is now enough time on this side of the meridian to improve the level of signal and I tend to agree with Marcus that doubling the amount of exposure will be more effective than only getting another 5 hours.

Thanks once again for all the feedback and I will soon have another reprocess of this fascinating object.

[Paul Haese]

Given all the feed back and I got more data and this is the result. I put the changed the link at the top of the thread but for those who can't be bothered here it is again.

Click here (http://paulhaese.net/M78QSITAK102.html)for link

What do you think now guys? I have attached a copy of the former image for comparison.

[strongmanmike]

Hmmm?...better I think :confuse3:

[spearo]

Great shots!
frank

[multiweb]

Much better. The core is smoother and more details pop up now. Also the colours on the outerneb and the barnard loop are more natural.

[Astroman]

Nice detail Paul, really nice looking, gives the Neb some character.

[gregbradley]

Oh yeah baby that's nice.

Looks more balanced and smoother and nice deep saturated colours yet very luminous.

Terrific.

Greg.

[Leonardo70]

UAO, Paul amazing one ... congratulations.

Leo