Antares in Scorpius

[Octane]

Hi all,

Taken at Kulnura.

Read and view here (http://members.optusnet.com.au/octane2asphyx/Kulnura/Kulnura_20060226_Antares.html).

Comments and critique welcome.

Warning: file is approximately 1.2 MB in size.

Regards,
Humayun

[RB]

Simply stunning image mate.
I knew you had a winner when I saw the preview screen of the camera.
It was amazing to see the fine detail of the dust lanes in the individual 30 sec frames.

Well done.

[davidpretorius]

I still remember your first post and the single minded attention to processing you did. One of the guys from memory said that once all the steps fell into place, then you would produce first class work.

well my friend, you are now there!!!

Antares is beautifully collimated, there is a slight curvature (not sure if this is the right term) to edges, but i am finding it hard to work out where it could be improved!!

The dust lanes that are forming "Humayun's Hands" are spectacular.

Beautifully presented.

Please get a poster done and dare I say, a possible entry in the malin???

[Octane]

Andrew,

Thanks, mate!

Cheers for suggesting it as a target. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[Octane]

David,

You've got me blushing! With a cheesey smile on my face at the same time! :ashamed:

Thank you very much for your compliment and kind words.

As far as posters are concerned, I've printed out my other two recent images of Lostock (Pointers and Crux, Crux and Eta Carinae) and they came out really, really nice. They were printed on 6"x8" photographic paper. I would love to make large format prints of all of them and get them framed.

As for a possible entry into the David Malin Awards -- I doubt it! I'm just starting out in this venture, and there are others who are far more deserving of entering (and winning). Having said that, how does one enter the awards, anyway?

I can't wait to take more astrophotographs.

Kind regards,
Humayun

[ving]

and to think, you wont be taking any more shots from kulnura :(

that shots brilliant!

[RB]

Don't worry David, he's promised he'll be taking the long way home every new moon, (via Kulnura).

:whistle:

[h0ughy]

Thanks for the views from space Humayun, it is simply an awesome shot complete with dust lanes and a diffraction spike for antares! great skill and processing too, I think you should enter it, you will never know until you try eh mate!

[Octane]

Hi David,

Thanks!

There is a possibility that I might drive up once a month, visit Kulnura night, stay at the parents and then head back down on Sunday afternoon.

Regards,
Humayun

[Octane]

Hi David,

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I bought bits and pieces today to build the serial cable for my EOS-350D. I might try and sneak some long exposure images from my backyard before I leave.

Regards,
Humayun

[davidpretorius]

does anyone know how you enter the malins, cos we have some jupiters from dennis and rob, dennis moon shot, this one, rocket and striker had some rippas???

[tornado33]

Great pic there. The milky way is on its way, a few more months and it will be nice and high in the wee hours :)

[Itchy]

I haven't seen the info come out yet. Last year, the blurb was released around March/April, with a closing date in early June. I'll let you guys know as soon as I hear anything.

Cheers

[Itchy]

BTW Humayun, great shot.

It is a beautiful area of the sky. I attempted the same area last year. It was really hard to process, but here is what I ended up with:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/itchysastro/Rho-Ophi-final.jpg

Cheers

[Octane]

Tony,

Thanks for your compliment.

I love the contrast in your image. I'll attempt longer exposures next time (I should have a working serial cable shortly!).

Regards,
Humayun

[Vermin]

One thing I don't understand is the image scale of this photo.

Plugging 50mm F2.5 into Ron Wodowski's CCD calc and using the 20D chip (close enough to the 350D chip) gives an image scale of about 25 arc seconds per pixel.

How the heck are stars resolved in this image? Or have I done something stupid (again)?

[JohnH]

OK I don't mean to be picky, the image is beautiful but its cloudy here and I have nothing better to do so...:poke: there is strong SA in the corners - the stars are trumpets, I do not like this effect myself but it is there in most of my shots (cheap Canon lenses). So you could improve this by stopping down and shooting longer or cropping them out. There. And it isn't sour grapes - honest the processing is very well done indeed :thumbsup: .

[[1ponders]]

You're close Tom. Just a slight miscalculation in the units.
Approx FOV = W/F x57.3 Deg
= 22.7mm (Width of a 300D chip. don't know the 20D width)/50mm X57.3
= 26 deg

(the x 57.3 is to convert Radians to degrees)

[[1ponders]]

Tom if you go to the calculator and select the 35 mm camera option and use that then ignore the width of the film and only use the height that will give you the width using a 300D. (did you follow that :P) The hight of a standard 35 mm film frame is the same width as a 300D chip. ie 22.7 mm

PS the ccd calculator will give it in arcmin <=> divide by 60 :shrug:

[Vermin]

Paul, you calculated the FOV, I calculated the image scale (i.e. the FOV of one pixel).

My question remains, how are the stars resolved when each pixel sees nearly half an arc minute?

[[1ponders]]

:doh::doh::doh::P