UPDATED: Higher Res Eta carina - LRGB at last!

[Dennis]

Hello,

Finally, three important events collided; clear Brisbane skies, equipment that behaved itself and an operator infused with motivation after months and months spent languishing in the astronomy doldrums.:(

Tak Mewlon 180 F12 with ST2000XM and CFW9.
Lum = 12x5 minutes.
RGB = 3x5 minutes each.
Brisbane, 11th February 2011.

Flats, Darks, Align, Stack, LRGB combine in CCDStack.
Finished in CS5 (cropped and downsized).

With the relatively long subs for this bright region, the data looks like more could be squeezed out of it, but for the time being, it represents the best I can do with my current tool set and processing capabilities. Love those 3 vane Mewlon spiders!;)

Thanks for looking!

Cheers

Dennis

[multiweb]

Wow! That's a beaute. So much details and wisps around. Not an easy feat at that FL. Really nice work. :thumbsup:

[desler]

Wow Dennis, now that is up close and personal! Lovely!

Darren

[atalas]

Fabulous!

[CoolhandJo]

Great work! Close detailed and good colour balance.

[marc4darkskies]

A striking image Dennis - well done!

Cheers, Marcus

[peter_4059]

Amazing detail Dennis. The spikes do look good.

[h0ughy]

:2thumbs::2thumbs:supurb :prey2: :prey2: :bowdown:

[[1ponders]]

Very sharp & 3 dimensional Dennis. :clap:

Hope you don't mind but I used yours as the standard for sharpening my shot from last night. So far to go :sad:

[jjjnettie]

Beautiful Dennis, really beautiful.

[Dennis]

Thank you Marc, Darren, Louie, Dr Paul, Marcus, Peter, David, Paul & Jeanette, I appreciate your messages.:)

The stars away from the centre of the field show some coma, a classical effect of the Dall-Kirkham design of the Mewlon. On the few occasions when I look through the Mewlon with an eyepiece, I am usually so overwhelmed by the tight stars in the centre that my mind subconsciously ignores the comatic stars at the edge. However, the larger chip on the ST2000XM records these as dashes, so there is no way of getting away from this characteristic of the Mewlons when using larger ccds.

Cheers

Dennis

[DavidU]

Very nice indeed Dennis!

[alexch]

What a brilliant image with 3-D look. Like the spikes too!

[Dennis]

Thanks Dave and Alex, I've enjoyed everything about this image; my re-acquaintance with the skies and my gear along with the acquisition of the sub frames as well as the processing.:)

I’ve just added another 30 minutes of Lum data (6x5min subs) from earlier in the same evening and it has made the overall image a little smoother, albeit subtly. This is also a slightly different crop to the original.

Cheers

Dennis

[gregbradley]

Wow, you got a lot of detail in there. The fickle finger is particularly well defined and is a good judge of super sharp optics and good focus.

Greg.

[scopemankit]

What skills, what an image!!

[spearo]

love this FOV on this target you show the detail well
frank

[sheeny]

That's awesome, Dennis!

Al.

[Dennis]

Thanks Greg – I appreciate your comments. If only I had heeded your advice in another Eta post (by 1Ponders) regarding long focal length off axis auto guiding. I spent a futile 12 months or so trying to chase down differential flexure!:(

I know that some have been successful, but in my case, it seems that only self guiding via the ST2000XM has tamed the auto guiding gremlins that have plagued me with my side by side set up.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Thanks Chris, Frank and Al, I appreciate your posts.:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Hello,

Whilst whiling away the wet weather in Brisbane, I decided to track down an AAT photo of Eta Carina to compare it with the Mewlon image (bless the internet!) and I was pleasantly surprised at the degree of correlation between features in each image. I only wish I had the tighter stars of the AAT David Malin photo!:)

I tried to create an animation but was unable to make it work effectively, so if you would like to compare the 2 images, it is possible to “blink” them in the image viewer, just by alternately selecting each one in turn.

The AAT photo was cropped from its original canvas to align it with the Mewlon image.

Cheers

Dennis

[Stevec35]

Now that is indeed a high quality Eta!

Cheers

Steve

[strongmanmike]

What's with these rediculous comparisons Dennis, I dunno :rolleyes: :P

As far as resolved details go well, they are essentially the same to my eyes :thumbsup:

Now if they had put the AAT on La Palma where the average seeing is 0.6" and as good as 0.2" and used a modern CCD, the shot would be very Hubblesque. Whack the Mewlon on La Palma too and your shot would then be better than Davids for sure :thumbsup:

Lets all move to la Palma :stargaze:

Mike

Mike

[allan gould]

Superb detail there Dennis and interesting that you had to go to off axis guiding to solve your guiding problems with a guidescope.

[gregbradley]

A fantastic image. Boy you really picked up a lot of detail there. Marvellous.

Greg.