4.310 billion pixel Orion Image -my most ambitious project to date

[gregbradley]

I took this mosaic in late Dec/early Jan during the Christmas break.
It was at my dark site in Bigga NSW. I got 11 out of 12 nights clear weather with excellent seeing whilst Sydney was cloudy.

This is a 4.3 billion pixel image.

It is HaLRGB of 4.5 hours per panel (I rejected probably another 5 or 6 hours worth). 10 minute subexposures using the FLI Proline 16803 camera (16.77 mp, 4096 x 4096 pixels). Plus AP140 Horsehead, TEC180 M42, TEC180 M78 added in.

It took a while to process as anyone who has done a mosaic can tell you but I like the widefield story it has to tell that is really not possible at this resolution without a mosaic.

The image has been shot with 3 different scopes. The main image is using a Tak FSQ106ED. M78 was taken with a TEC180 fluorite. The Horsehead was shot with an AP140. M42 was shot with the TEC180 fluorite. They have been blended in using Registar and Photoshop.

Equipment was Takahashi NJP mount, Tak FSQ106ED with reducer, adapters and FLI Proline 16803. Autoguided with an Astrotech 66ED guidescope and an SBIG ST402ME camera. I use a standard 10 minute exposure at -30C.

I have an observatory that I can setup in when I am down there. Skies are very very dark (9/10 perhaps) and seeing can be superb at times.

I framed it to take in Barnard's Loop which is rarely imaged and is brighter than I expected in the Ha images.

Here it is:

http://upload.pbase.com/image/133257168

Greg.

[sadia]

this is absolutely wonderful Greg :). Bottom left half is my fav.

[suma126]

all i can its breathtaking:bowdown: I'm going to save this as a screen saver

[renormalised]

Brilliant!!!:):)

Pity you lost 5-6 hours of subs....it might've been even better than what it already is. The Loop is spectacular, stars are nice and tight, colour excellent:):)

[marc4darkskies]

That's an awesome image Greg!! Just spectacular ... I see a DM award in your future ;)! Well done!!

Wouldn't mind seeing a higher res version though. That's the problem with large mosaics - you can't display them (easily).

3 Billion pixels?

Cheers, Marcus

[richardo]

This is superb Greg!!
Huge amount of detailed areas and everything is just right colour wise, intensity and the Ha areas are just perfect.

Top stuff and very much worth the time, travelling and effort when you get results like this.

Very well done.:thumbsup:

All the best
Rich

[paulF]

Wow Greg! Speechless!! Amazing effort and thus an amazing image!

[troypiggo]

Absolutely breathtaking. Can't even comprehend the time taken to process this, let alone capture the data, calibrate, combine etc. Mucho kudos to you!

[CometGuy]

Whoa Greg..thats impressive!

[atalas]

Excellent Greg!

[telemarker]

You photon hog!!! :P

Kidding aside, that is a seriously good image. Something to be proud of. :thumbsup:

Regards
Keith

[A23649]

saw this and went "wow, thats my new desktop screen saver!"

love these massive mosaics

[Leonardo70]

Greg ... WOW :eyepop:

Ciao,
Leo

[seeker372011]

Stunning

[Tandum]

Amazing Greg. You definately have too much time on your hands :)

[marco]

Excellent sharpness here Greg! These mosaics are lots of fun, aren't they? ;) If you allow me a suggestion, I would just tune a bit the luminosity of both the Barnard loop and M42 core to avoid them to over-saturate and give to this wonderful framing a more natural look :)

Clear Skies
Marco

[TrevorW]

What can you say :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[peter_4059]

It took a long time to download and you can see why - stunning!

[RobF]

Just wonderful. I'm going swimming in Orion for a while now.....;)

[Octane]

Goodness me, Greg. Wow!

I do agree with Marco's summary of processing, though. Is there any chance you could perhaps turn down the luminance of the brighter portions in Barnard's Loop?

Staggering effort -- very impressed!

H

[OzRob]

That's wonderful stuff.

[Ross G]

An amazing photo Greg.

I love the colours.


Ross.

[multiweb]

Love the field and especially the bottom and bottom left of the pic. So sharp, colourful and clear. The barnard loop and the region around M78 came up a treat. The top around the witch head is hard to see though so are all the Ha regions between the HH and M42 compared to Marco recent IOTW. Maybe more data is needed in those area. Nonetheless a top shot. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Yes that is a very interesting part of the area.






There's always next year! I intend to add more panels next year.
Its one of those areas that could be a massive image and still be interesting.




Cheers Marcus. I'll see what I have in the large image stakes. Is 300mb OK? hehe. I can probably rig something up.



Thanks Rich. I am happy how it turned out. I am also happy I managed to process a mosaic! Its tricky to get the balances between the panels.




Thanks Paul. It is a magnificent area of the sky.



Thanks for that. It fills an otherwise idle day over the Christmas break waiting for night to come around again!



Thanks for that.



Cheers Louie.



Yes I definitely got my fair share of photons over that break. It makes up for the miserable year the year before!



That's great. I am hope it makes your computer look good.



Ciao Leo.



Thanks for that.



Yes that's true at Christmas.



Cheers Marco. I lowered the luminosity of the roughly lower half and adjusted the colour of M42 a tad. M42 core though to my taste and previous images seems OK. It has been represented differently in different images. Some show it a bit colourless, some like mine, some a bit yellowish. I think depending on the resolution but perhaps also because it is so bright it tends to be hard to get a stable rendition of it. In my other attempts at M42 the core area has come out that way so I picked the best of my earlier images (TEC180fl image) and used that without much modification.



Thanks Trev.



I am glad I used an I7 lappie. It would be hard on my older core duo 2.
The main image was around 300mb.



Hehe. Yes there is a lot in there.



Cheers Humi. I addressed the lower half as per Marco's suggestion and tweaked the colour of M42 just a little to get the blues a bit better.

Barnards Loop did come out strongly. I was surprised by that as it is normally only seen in very wide 50mm lens type shots and it seems dim then.



Cheers Rob.



Thanks Ross. It is a wonderland in the sky.



Not sure the witch head is in this image. I thought that was a bit more to the left. I have done FSQ images before of Orion where the red background comes out very strongly. That is a processing option for sure. Mine did not come out as strongly. Perhaps the choices I made when adding in the Ha (I am much more lightly lightly with Ha these days) or as I recall it didn't show up as much. Not sure why. But I also wanted to balance the colours in the overall image better than I have in previous Ha blends. My new perspective on Ha is to not let it dominate the image like it can so very easily. I want the details and edge it can bring without it overwhelming. Like too much spice in a food dish.

Greg.

[h0ughy]

very impressive

[Peter Ward]

3.4 billion pixels it 'aint ( 16 panes with a 16803 is 256 mega pixels...so you'd need well over 160 panes for 2.56 billion ;) )

But, what an impressive result! Well done.

[spearo]

excellent stuff
well done
frank

[gregbradley]

Thanks Dave.



Thanks Peter. You're right. This image is over 160 panes. M78, M42 and HH are all separate images blended in.
I did a tally up. A pane is 16.77mp (4096 x 4096 pixels).

Panel 1 is 838.5mp (26 panes of the main image and 24 panes for M78 from my TEC180) 50 x 16.77 = 838.5mp
Panel 2 is 39 panes for the base image, 82 panes for M42 and 33 panes for the Horsehead = 154x 16.77 = 2582.58mp
Panel 3 is 25 panes 25 x 16.77 = 419.25mp
Panel 4 is 26 panes 26 x 16.77 = 469.56mp

Grand Total is 4309.89mp

So that's 4.3 billion megapixels.

Some of our images are larger than what we think.

Greg.

QUOTE=spearo;709251]excellent stuff
well done
frank[/QUOTE]

Thanks Frank.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

The strongest thing about this image is that it is a unique view, I haven't seen this composition before. Barnards Loop is the showcase and sets the scene.

I certainly don't underestimate the trials and tribulations of composing a mozaic (I have not attempted one yet) but for such a mamoth effort with such great gear I guess if I am honest I am left with the feeling that it could have just a little more polish :confuse3:, so I agree with the suggestions made so far... but heck!!! all things considered it still has major impact and does make the viewer go wow! so well done, I really enjoyed the view :thumbsup:.

Great effort Greg

11 clear nights..:eyepop:ASNSW guys got back from Conna last week after 7 clear nights in a row too...sigh..stuff straight from heaven :thumbsup:

Mike

[Stevec35]

Well that's incredibly impressive Greg - well done!

Steve

[Peter Ward]

Wow! I was looking at the FOV and was thinking no-way that the amount of sky was equal to say a 40x 40 matrix of a FSQ/16803 field, but... I stand corrected! (4.3 billion pixels.... 4.3 billion megapixels would truly be a world first :)

From a data gathering point of view, that is indeed massive!!

Again, well done.

[Bassnut]

Absolutely Stunning Greg. Very deep, and I like the appropriate processing for each object to bring each right out.

[renormalised]

What would be magnificent, but would take a month of Sundays to produce, would be a "grand panorama" of the entire sky done like this. Just imagine the size of the final piccie!!!!. But what a piccie it would be :)

[alexch]

Truly amazing image, Greg! Thanks for the view.
Alex

[hickny]

Wow!

[Hagar]

Now that is what I call a huge project to tackle Greg. The end result is beautiful. The detail even when reduced to fit the screen on this IPad is outstanding. I will be able to use this as a street map of Orion when next it pops up high in the sky.
Thanks. For sharing this with us.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mike. I already adjusted the image after those comments so I assume you are referring to the current image. It no doubt could be improved upon as can any image. But after all the fiddling I think I ended up with a decent result. Often mosaics are dark to hide the little defects much like a rock guitarist turns up the fuzz on the guitar to hide the flubs. Jase's mosaic of Rho had a very light background so he was very good there with his technique.

I have the data for an even larger mosaic I took over a year ago now. It is 16 panels of about 6 hours each. Now I have this as a method I should start the long process of putting it together.



Thanks Steve. It was a big undertaking and I am pleased I got an image out of it. I wasn't so sure I would at one point!



Thanks Peter. Yes it does represent a large collection of data over a longish period of time. It helps using the 16803 chip as each image is so very large.





Yes a full sky image would be something. I am sure one day it will be routine and done with a mass produced Canon camera!



Thanks Alex. Glad I can post something to impress you after your wonderful images lately. Just imagine, you could collect a huge resolution swathe of sky with your SDM 22 inch very quickly. You'd have to keep good admin to know which panel belonged where though.



Cheers.



Thanks Doug. I intend to add to it next year so it will take in even more.

[marki]

Greg what a wonderful image, well worth your time and effort.

Mark

[Octane]

Greg,

The re-upload is so much better! The colours are a lot more natural without hydrogen alpha dominating the scene.

I agree with a lot of other people, the feel of the bottom left hand corner is awesome. It looks 3D and I feel like reaching in and touching it. To me, that is always the hallmark of a great image.

If I feel like reaching in and touching it on screen, I can only imagine how incredible a large format print of this would look. Wow!

This gets my vote for Image of the Week. I'm sure it'll catch Mike's eye, too. : )

H

[FlashDrive]

Just Beautiful .... :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mark. Its been a project for some time.



Thanks Humi. Always good to get others viewpoint on an image as after a while its hard to keep a perspective on it.



Cheers.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Oh for sure! it is decent alright... and who am I to comment anyway being such a mosaic virgin (still) and scaredy cat :help::lol:

As I said overall it is a fine vista :thumbsup:

Mike

[Lester]

Brilliant composition Greg, thanks for the view. One to remember for me.

[TrevorW]

You know Greg the only thing wrong with this image is my 22" screeen isn't big enough to get it all in one view

I need a bigger monitor

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mike. I am sure it could be improved with another 100 hours hehehe.



Thanks Lester. A nice compliment.



Thanks Trevor. I'll have to make some prints of this one and frame it.

Greg.

[Ross G]

Hi Greg,

I keep on going back to this photo.

It is one of my favourite parts of the sky and your photo is one of the best I have ever seen of this region.

It is original and inspiring.


Ross.

[gregbradley]

Wow, thanks Ross. That's great one of my images has had such an impact. Certainly a goal any imager has it to make an impact with their images. Cheers

Greg.

[Ric]

Stunning Greg, a work of art.

Barnards loop is bloody awesome.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ric. Its going straight to the pool room!

Greg.

[davidpretorius]

Superb, what a fantastic gallery of great work.

Congrats

[multiweb]

I like the repro a lot Greg. :thumbsup: I'm more into pushed to the limit data hence my previous comments but I see your point in highlighting the barnard loop as the main feature.

[gregbradley]

Thanks David. I've taken a few over the years.




Thanks Marc. Often you need a fresh viewpoint to take an image that bit extra. When you look at it too long by yourself you can lose perspective.

Greg.