First Light from ARO - Rosette Nebula

[wysiwyg]

Hi Everyone,

Its taken a lot longer to produce first light than I thought, mainly due to a faulty green filter :(

My original first light target was going to be the witches head, but as you can see in the attachment below my green filter (Baader) is producing artefacts due to Rigel being so close in the field of view.
Any other place in the sky no problems, so until I have it replaced the Witch head will have to wait.
Having done over 40 hours on the Witch head in Nov/Dec last year I had to move to a new target, which turned out to be the popular Rosette.

Happy to say other than that, ARO is working perfectly :)

This is Rosette in LRGB (22:11:11:11) Hours.
Processed using PixInsight and PS for final touches.

Rosette (Medium) (http://www.pbase.com/wysinwyg/image/141162352/medium)

Rosette (Large) (http://www.pbase.com/wysinwyg/image/141162352/large)

Thanks for Looking!

Cheers
Mark

[Mighty_oz]

Must be my eyes i can't quite seem to make out the rosette in the pic ( it's a lovely pic as well ), but it sure does show up in those larger ones u linked :) Very nice wish i could image over here in Perth .

[rogerg]

Wow, that's a lot of data and a spectacular result. Wonderful star colour and that "glitter" appearance to the stars. Very rich nebulosity.

It looks slightly darker just immediately beyond the primary nebula before lightening towards the perimeter, is that as it should be, or is there some processing artifact there such as over-correcting vinyetting or unsharp mask having a darkening effect immediately around the nebula?

[wysiwyg]

Thank Marcus!



Roger,

Thanks!
I'm not sure, but having checked my RAW files, it appears as though its normal. It seems to go from light to dark and then dark again.

Mark

[strongmanmike]

That's a fine image of the Rosette Mark, nice work.

55+ hours :eyepop: I think that may be a record for one frame without combining several scopes or archived data on IIS, anyone gone longer? Not sure it was really necessary but if you can, heck, why not? :thumbsup:

Personally I'm too not fussed on the diffraction spikes, they look fake, I would suggest making them much thinner and more subtle :question:

You must be wrapped with the new Observatory when you can do this sort of project :thumbsup:

Mike

[prokyon]

Very nice Mark! Especially the colors are great.

[TrevorW]

Nice but a) drop diffraction spikes b) tone down green c) change the attachment to the Rosette

also one of the major stars in the Rosette cluster is yellow

Cheers

[mill]

Nice picture Mark :thumbsup:
One tip though, if you have or can get a HA filter i would use that for the Rosette to catch it in a lot less time :)

[LightningNZ]

I would have thought that for 55 hours of exposure you'd see dust everywhere?

Cheers,
Cam

[wysiwyg]

Thanks Mike!
The diffraction spikes were kind of an after thought, but I quite like them.
I will see if I can make them look more natural.



Thanks Mate!



Trevor,
Thanks for the feedback!
Oh and d) read entire post before making comments!

The attachment is in relation to the text part of the post :)




Thanks Martin,
I do have the full NB set, and yes that will be on my next thing to do list.



Cam,

55 hours sounds long, but given the subs were 30 mins each, thats only 20 or so subs per channel.
I also used 5 minute subs to bring out the star colours, but even at 5 minutes the bright ones are saturated.

Mark

[TrevorW]

Sorry didn't read entire post missed comment about the Witchhead

[Ross G]

Great photo Mark.

Very sharp and the colours are so smooth.

Such long exposures..wow!

Thanks.

Ross.

[wysiwyg]

No worries buddy! I took your advice and reduced the green.
Thanks!



Thanks Ross :)

[gregbradley]

Wow a huge effort and super long exposure. As Mike said this must be some sort of a record. Even Rob Gendler probably didn't do one that long.

It is missing the Ha though. You get a very bright Ha image very quickly as this is mostly an Ha object. The stars around the nebula look oversharpened so perhaps you sharpened the neb areas (nebs don't really require much sharpening being a rather vague object). On the other hand Ha added to the Rosette makes it a heavily red image which is not that great to view so LRGB is a nice touch. Nicer, more subtle colours.

As you mentioned star colours could be more saturated but they are coloured which is good.

Overall a fine image and no doubt you will learn more about how to extract the best image out of this setup as you go along.

With that many files processing must have taken quite some time as well.

I personally don't mind the diffraction spikes but they can be unpopular.

Greg.

[wysiwyg]

Greg,

Thanks mate!

Yes still heaps to learn, and I doubt I will ever stop!

As you know every object comes with its own challenges. I find using longer exposures, I get a much smoother finish, having to do very little as far as noise reduction is concerned.

Yes the number of files is overwhelming, but I am using PixInsight which makes the whole process a whole lot easier and quicker.
Having your own file structure and workflow setup also helps!

Cheers
Mark

[Paul Haese]

I have view this image at least 6 times and went to comment several times but decided to hold off. Until now.:)

First, this is very smooth. :thumbsup: 30 minute subs is the most you really need. You can use 20 minutes and that will still overwhelm the background noise given enough subs and some smoothing tricks.

The image really needs some Ha to give a depth of field. The image currently looks a little flat and we know it is a three dimensional object so that would be the goal here. Some masking with curves of different types will help to lift the image and give it a depth of field.

I don't care about the diffraction spikes. Either way is fine by me.

I think it would be better to show the entire field you have captured here too. It might be more effective.

Finally, crank up that saturation. It will help to make this a dynamic image.

Good data, great image looming in it. Looking forward to a repro down the track.

[wysiwyg]

Paul,

Cheers mate!

The rosette in Narrowband is definitely on my list of things to do.

Mark