Hi All,
A while between posts. Rather busy with work and have not been in the country much. That said, there's always been opportunities for imaging, whether it be with my own gear or on rental kit. Anyway, here is an image produced from the latter. I'm progressively getting into more mosaic work which I'm finding challenging and different. The ability to display a usual target in a different light continues to be the main catalyst for reinvention. Will be certain to produce a single panel image sometime soon to ensure I can still do it...
So with that in mind, I'm pleased to present;
M33 - Triangulum Galaxy
Certainly had some fun with this, more so in the planning to find suitable guide stars. Hard to beat a mosaic providing a wide field and resolution to boot. This one is six panel with minimalistic data I should add. Just 20mins per RGB channel across each panel. So in total around 6hrs...which is basically ridiculous for this type of work. One could easily expect a far great quantity of data. I lend this to the sensitivity of the Apogee U42 camera coupled to 24" of aperture. With broadband filters, this set up will bloom quick so sucking down photons giving a good signal to noise isn't an issue. I wouldn't have tried this project on any other instrument given the cost of mega data on rental scopes. However, having not a lot of data to play with presented a few issues. Overall the data sets very good in quality. I set up the runs while the object crossed the meridian however atmospheric seeing between the panels differed. Not too much, but was noticeable. To compensate I applied varying intensities of deconvolution in an attempt to reduce the effect. I think it worked ok, but its still not ideal. Two other key items I should add that come to mind due to the lack of data. Firstly, I used a synthetic luminance (data reject and sum combine the r,g,b subs) to reduce the quantity of noise. In addition, to make the HII regions pop I stitched and stretch the red channel data to improve the contrast. No where near as good as collecting Ha data, but seems to have worked ok. No much else to add other than the usual softlight colour boost routine and selecting sharpening. Noise still present, but I'll consider the project complete for now. In fact, I have torn enough hair out for this image already trying to get the panels seamless in transition.
I've attached the mosaic plan utilised for reference (please note its upside down) when comparing it to the image. The present image at full size is has been reduced to make it web friendly.
All comments welcome.
Cheers
