The mother of all nebulae - added OIII, see messages for details

[marco]

Hi all, I post one picture of an object that will bother most of you, so please be kind with me :D

It is the perhaps the most imaged nebula of the sky, this time with more than 15 hours of light collected with HaRGB filterset. Here is the link:

http://www.glitteringlights.com/Images/deepsky/13667287_7Mtr58#!i=1735031770&k=xdQ9RZs&lb=1&s=X3 (http://www.glitteringlights.com/Images/deepsky/13667287_7Mtr58#%21i=1733758810&k=Vjrb8sK&lb=1&s=X3)
edit: added OIII data, see message #18

I suggest the view at full resolution. I tried to push the image to show all details and colors of the area, there are some blue and yellow nebulae that I didn't noticed before. I hope to have been able to keep balanced resolution and natural appearance..

Core's details are courtesy of Angus Lau, an amateur that has a dome next to mine in Australia that took the short exposures for me with his TEC180. If you want to know more of his work, his website (very nice) is here:http://anguslau.smugmug.com/

I hope you will like the image, comments and critiques as always are both welcome :)

Clear Skies
Marco

[multiweb]

:eyepop:Best I've seen Marco. Really superb! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Wow Marco, that's....different? :eyepop:

Certainly very deep :thumbsup:

I looked at this for a while including at high res and to me it looks like a bunch of different images all kinda mixed into one :question:

For me the variation in smoothing and sharpening and colour and blur is somewhat unrealistic but at the same time looks quite amazing...this is art baby :thumbsup:

I think this may polarise opinions a bit...I think David Malin would positively hate it :lol:

Marco Picasso :P

Yes, Angus has a some great shots on his pages for sure....TEC 180 huh? niiiice

Mike

[h0ughy]

looks a great image. Carnia is larger so it must be daddy ;)
i like the dust and other detail

[Screwdriverone]

Geez Marco,

I wouldnt be apologising for posting THAT!

WOW!

Cheers

Chris

[astrospotter]

First of all it is an amazing image and great processing (as usual Marco)

Now the question: So why did you leave off OIII???

Not being critical because I too have left off OIII for this object but I have seen in the past your amazing Vela SNR complete with OIII so it leads me to ask this question on such an OIII rich area.

Again, amazing image and range-compressed nicely so as to bring up all the activity all about this wonderful area.

Nice!

Mark Johnston

[mill]

Plenty to see in this image and very good detail :thumbsup:

[Lester]

Very nice deep view Marco, thanks. Did you image this from within Shanghai? As I presume the light pollution there would be astronomical.

All the best.

[Ross G]

A beautiful photo Marco.

The detail is amazing.

Ross.

[gregbradley]

Oh man that is just soooo good.

Love the colours especially that deep maroon. How do you get that colour from Ha? It must be your blending methods. Its wonderful.

Angus has a TEC180 also. I thought mine was the only one in Aussie.
Tht's good and his images are also spectacular. Obviously the skies there help and must be very very good.

Greg.

[TrevorW]

Nice

[Rigel003]

Stunning photo, Marco. The stars are so sharp and beautiful colour throughout. It really makes an dramatic impact.

[Kevnool]

Superb, Its so good.

Cheers

[marco]

Thanks Marc!



:lol: I was some how expecting your comment Mike :lol: Actually this is not a patchwork, the whole frame is coming from single images with the only exception of the core. What you are noticing (and perhaps finding a bit disturbing ;)) is the higher resolution (i.e. tighter stars) of the central area, I have been thinking for a while to reduce the resolution of Angus image applying a little gaussian blur, this just to better blend the stars' sizes of the core to the rest of the image, but, hey, I have some high res data for the core, couldn't be so brave to throw this detail away :screwy:

So Picasso :painting:had to trade the perfect blend for the sake of thinner details :P

Thanks for the comment :thumbsup:



:ashamed: you are right Houghy, forgot about it, should I change the title to "Queen" otherwise will have to make Carina a transgender :D Thanks for the appreciation :)



Thanks Chris!



Thanks Mark! Well, the point about the OIII is quite relevant, also because I actually collected some OIII data (so far a couple ours). I still have to collect some more (:windy: as conditions allow) and than see how to blend it in. However it is very difficult to blens OIII in this area without color shifting the whole nebula.. let me see what can do as have all the OIII available..



Thanks Mill!



Yes mate, form the city center with a limiting magnitude of about 2 and foggy nights :D Just kidding, image taken from Coonabarabran, usual sky brightness there is around 21.7 mag/"
Thanks for the appreciation!



Hi Ross, thank you!



Thanks Greg! Blending of Ha was done in PS, 2 layers, one with lighten and another (differently processed) using screen.. Not too bad, even if perhaps a bit too intrusive..



Thanks Trevor!



Thanks Rigel!



Thanks Ken, appreciate it!

Marco

[matty84]

Beautiful work Marco, love the colours good work mate.
Matt

[marco]

Thanks Matt, appreciate it!

Clear skies
Marco

[ballaratdragons]

Stunning Marco! :thumbsup:

It's images like this that make me angry when people tell kids that space is empty!!

Here's more proof that space is FULL! :)

[marco]

I took the suggestion of Mark and tried to add to the image some OIII I had (120m). I was not expecting much, since the brightness of the other data is overwhelming the OIII.. well, I was wrong :P

In fact the OIII is not contributing at all to the external side of the nebula but it is quite relevant in the core, in particular for all those "floating" gas and dust lanes. I don't actually believe that these details emits predominantly in the ionized Oxygen line, surely however this filter kill the Ha emission and permits a very high contrast of these details that I believe have a green-blue broadband emission.

Below is the version with OIII added:
http://www.glitteringlights.com/Images/deepsky/13667287_7Mtr58#!i=1735031770&k=xdQ9RZs&lb=1&s=X3 (http://www.glitteringlights.com/Images/deepsky/13667287_7Mtr58#%21i=1735031770&k=xdQ9RZs&lb=1&s=X3)

Again, the view at full resolution ("O") permits to see these details at full glory. I am not sure which version is more pleasant in terms of overall color balance, for sure the new one has more details, so I believe I will keep only the latter. What is your thought?

Marco

[RickC]

beautiful image Marco, amazing amount of detail
Richard

[LucasB]

Thank you for posting Marco. Always a pleasure to look at your images!:thumbsup::thumbsup:
Lucas

[marco]

Thanks Lucas :)



Thanks to you too Richard..

Regards
Marco

[strongmanmike]

Hey Marco, had a long look at the full res version at your web site last night...and I have to say it has kind of grown on me :love: ...it really is quite an amazing shot, different (bit like Rogelio's images)..... but still rather amazing :thumbsup:

Mike

[marco]

:D Thanks Mike, I do agree it is somehow different than the classical look, to be honest I waited a bit before posting because I too had a mixed feeling with it, was happy about the details but was not sure if the overall look would have been appreciated or not. Eventually opted for keep it, at least I thought it was an interpretation of a classic more personal, kind of M42 remixed :P

Happy you like it mate :thumbsup:

Marco

[allan gould]

The OIII data has added to the image and like Mike I'm coming around to a better appreciation of what you have done. It's bold to step away from the conventional and it's made a sparkling original image of something well trodden.

[iceman]

Amazing image, stunning work Marco.

[Stevec35]

A treat to look at Marco - well done

Steve

[marco]

Thanks Allan, I am glad you like it! Sure stepping out the usual path is sometime a risk, as not always the result is appreciate (and appreciable!)..



Thanks Mike!



Thanks Steve, now this can be a teaser for you to squeeze your new FSQ and get a deep larger field of it :P

Clear skies
Marco

[gregbradley]

Still looking very good. Not sure how different it is as I don't fully remember the first version. But I think its got a bit more bluish grey whispy detail separate from the maroony red neb.

I got that you use Ha as red in lighten and also screen. Screen mode makes the reds brighter but that doesn't give you the deep maroon.
Do you use selective colour to add magenta to the red to bring out that deep maroon?

I was planning a deeper shot of M42 with an almost identical setup of the AP140/PL16803. It would be almost identical although I think the AP is a tad longer focal length.

Greg.

[marco]

Hi Greg, I didn't use any selective color. I believe you are referring to the color of dust areas. That is coming completely from the RGB data. In fact the Ha only added the "glowing" red in the background, I applied it as pure red. OIII is not contributing at all to the background (basically it only contributes to the core). All other colors you see (brown, green, blue etc) are coming from the deep RGB. If you interested in the processing, from the assembled RGB did it most of it in PI: background neutralization, DBE, color calibration, histogram transformation, HDR wavelet, multiscale sharpening and noise reduction.
Than moved to PS, enhanced the saturation (Lab curves), blended in the RGB core data (processed apart with PI in the same way), added the Ha and OIII (lighten+screen, setting the hue as Ha=255 and OIII=195) and than some final (very minor) retouching. I would say >70% was in PI and remaining in PS. I am still learning how to use Pixinsight at full power, for sure this package makes a lot of thing easier and faster than Photoshop..

I would expect you get very similar data than mine with your setup, scale difference would be very little. What would actually make a big improvement is using your TEC180 and do a mosaic of the area with higher resolution and deeper details..

Clear skies
Marco

[gregbradley]

Thanks Marco.

I saw a post on the TEC group where Percy Mui managed to make an adapter to fit his AP155TCC (a really high quality reducer/corrector - one of the best anywhere) to his TEC160FL.

I am thinking of making one. It probably would fit on the TEC140 as well.
That would give you F5.25 with perfect stars to the corners of a PL16803.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies]

An outstanding image Marco! Very striking!

Cheers, Marcus