[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

Beautiful work as usual m and t nice to be breaking into new ground!!

Originally Posted by Lognic04

HOLY MOLY! Amazing picture!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Ryderscope

Sheesh! Mind blowing detail. Presents the object in an entirely different light (no pun intended).

Originally Posted by Jen

Originally Posted by E_ri_k

Far out, that's dedication! Looking good

Erik

Thanks so much folks, your support counts. Much appreciated.

It's taken three attempts over several years to get here.

One thing: you can take a pretty good H-alpha Tarantula if the full moon is far enough away, but something like the current image is most easily done from a pretty dark site and totally clear sky within say 5 days of the new moon. Otherwise, random noise and gradients make it very difficult.

Another is that at our image scale (0.55 sec arc per pixel) and a 16803 chip at -30C, 2x2 binning is pretty much essential. In past years with unbinned data we saw nothing much. Perhaps a very low noise CMOS sensor would help.

Very best,
Mike and Trish