A period of family medical uncertainty in recent times, that ultimately involved a 5hr op for my wife, was successful
and we got the perfect result and prognosis of an all-clear
...but this has, not surprisingly, resulted in a period where imaging took a reality check and a back seat. So it's been over two months between imaging drinks
...of course I am not complaining in any way, I am very grateful for the outcome
Anyway, this past weekend, complete with that loooovely almost Full Moon, turned on some good conditions up at Eagleview. I hit something bright and doable in a couple of nights, The Tarantula Nebula
. Friday night was essentially shooting through the gaps and the occasional high cloud and with a FWHM of between 1.9" and 2.2" (not too bad) I decided to gamble and hope Sat night would have better seeing for the more important Ha and SII, so, I grabbed the OIII and RGB
On Cue, after a cloudy thunderstormy afternoon, the cloud cleared in the evening to a
spectacular Saturday night ,with no wind, no dew but arhem, a big bloody Moon of course, but as I had hoped, the trade mark Eagleview seeing turned it on, with the FWHM dropping as low as 1.5" crossing the meridian
...the non-AO, non AE, mechanical auto guiding was superb!...the guide star centroid plot was mesmerising, essentially just quivering (ave errors of +/- 0.18 arc sec!! most of the night), happy....
I see a lot of wonderful wider field images of this perennial favourite, stretched fairly hard to, quite legitimately, reveal all the amazing faint nebulosity outside the energetic centre of the maelstrom... but surprisingly few higher resolution versions of the central nebula region. So, armed with the Full Moon
, this was the goal. I wanted to showcase the depth and intricacies in the nebula structure, hoping for a kinda meaty solid 3D look that reveals the spacial depth, overall shape and structure but also reveals the wealth of colour nuances when this baby is imaged in 6 filters, while keeping the relative brightness of the dynamic range, natural looking (respecting the light). I also went for a, hopefully, more striking higher contrast look by not pushing the stretching, in order to keep the focus on the main arachnid show. When considering the details I was trying to extract, I had to keep reminding myself that this nebula is over 100X further away than the Orion Nebula!
After several versions and iterations and much contemplating, I think I'm kiiinda happy with this result
hope you like it
The Mighty 30 Doradus
Mike