NGC 2264 - HaRGB

Martin Pugh · #1 04-01-2009, 10:53 PM

Hello everyone.....back to work tomorrow

gladly the past few clear nights have allowed me to finish panel 1 of what will be a 2 panel mosaic....and I hope the weather holds out for me to get the remaining data.

This image comprises 11 hours HA and 3 hours each RGB, all unbinned.

12.5" RC, STL11K, AO-L guided throughout.

Cheers and thanks for looking....

Martin
http://www.martinpughastrophotograph...aRGB-Final.jpg

matt · #2 04-01-2009, 10:57 PM

Oh yeah! Stunning detail and clarity.

Looking forward to the finished product

Octane (Humayun) · #3 04-01-2009, 11:22 PM

Hi Martin,

Looks good. Looking forward to the final image.

Though, I must say, the cone area itself looks like it is blurred a bit? A bit soft? I don't know...

Regards,
Humayun

Hagar (Doug) · #4 04-01-2009, 11:34 PM

WOW what can I say. That is magnificent Martin.

Jen · #5 04-01-2009, 11:36 PM

once again Martin lovely work the detail is just awsome
keep em coming

Ric · #6 04-01-2009, 11:37 PM

A fascinating area Martin and a lovely image.

atalas · #7 04-01-2009, 11:39 PM

Wow,great work Martin..... new we were being watched !

marc4darkskies (Marcus) · #8 04-01-2009, 11:52 PM

Stunning Martin - just stunning!

Pardon my pickiness though - there are some wide halos - processing artifacts - around a 3 of the mid range brightness stars (left of center top frame) you might want to get rid of.

Cheers, Marcus

gregbradley · #9 05-01-2009, 05:53 PM

Hi Martin,
Boy you put in the hours.

But that's what it takes at long focal length F9.

At first a stunning image. On closer look it needs a bit of work.
The stars have distracting blue halos. Perhaps deconvolution on the other subs made smaller stars than in the
blue subs which I think it often does - blue subs tending to have the least sharp stars.

There are also some tracking errors that can be Photoshopped a bit. Lovely colour and smooth texture.

Greg.

multiweb (Marc) · #10 05-01-2009, 05:57 PM

Awesome stuff Martin

Kudos

AlexN · #11 05-01-2009, 07:22 PM

The man can't fail!!

Fantastic image of the Cone Martin... I am stunned by the detail in the clouds that your setup is able to capture...

Very nice indeed.

Martin Pugh · #12 05-01-2009, 09:54 PM

Thanks everyone...I appreciate the feedback.

Yes, I think I will go back and have a look at those blue halos when I add the second panel of the mosaic....I didnt reduce any of the RGB frames in any way before combining.....however, tracking errors I do not detect at all.

This object, even at the meridian, is only 45 degrees altitude at my latitude...so its a tough target to begin with.

I certainly do put in the hours Greg...but that's the beauty of automation and I am fortunate enough to have an observatory in my back yard....so when its clear, I image from dusk to dawn and do 3 or even 4 targets every night.

cheers
Martin

AlexN · #13 05-01-2009, 10:02 PM

Im working my way up to that kind of automation Martin... Slowly but surely... Currently, I can get it all running via a script sent from my PC inside to the gear outside... Only problem is I have to set the gear up first

and deal with mount problems and poor seeing without the aid of AO... But hey.. Its a start..

gregbradley · #14 05-01-2009, 10:09 PM

Hi Martin,

I looked at the image again. You are right I was looking mainly at one star which is at the upper left corner which is elongated. Perhaps it is a double star that didn't get resolved and so looks elongated.

I just had 9 clear nights in a row at my dark site which was nice. It makes amends for the crappy weather last year where out of 30 nights or so there I only got about 10 that were clear.

I just got about 45 hours of images taken ready to process further.

I found on some subs (mainly galaxy images) doing deconvolution on each RGB as well as L seemed to add some sparkle to the image.

I guess that depends on what you are imaging if it is a worthwhile technique or not and could be overdone. So far I like it on galaxies at least.

Blue subs are often hard to tame and blue halos can bleed through if the blue stars are slightly bloated or have less of an airy disc.

One trick might be one Jase mentioned here a while ago which is to image your blue subs first rather than last (assuming that is what you do as CCDsoft for example seems defaulted to do LRGB so blue is taken in the lower angles where atmospheric extinction starts to cut in).

Its something I plan to incorporate where an object is a bit low in the sky. Do the blue subs first.

Greg.

Martin Pugh · #15 05-01-2009, 10:21 PM

Why do blue subs first? That would only serve to bloat the stars further wit lower altitudes at play.

its a well known practice that an imaging sequence should place blue at the highest altitude possible i.e prior to and immediately after transitting the meridian, and you can leave your reds to the lowest altitude because it is very efficient imaging as red suffers the least, and is least affected by light pollution and moon light for that matter.....even more efficiency can be had by shooting RRGB when doing emission nebulae for this very reason.

thoughts?
cheers
Martrin

Martin Pugh · #16 05-01-2009, 10:24 PM

Hi Alex

good luck with that, and if I can help in anyway, let me know.

A friend of mine left his scope out this past week, having spent the first night polar aligning, and he pulled in loads of data also.

Sadly, when I lived in Belgium and then Portugal, I too was portable and I suffered from the exact same problems you describe, and produced almost nothing...but I was also at the very start of my imaging campaign then.

cheers
Martin

gregbradley · #17 05-01-2009, 10:25 PM

We are talking about the same thing. I was assuming a situation where you start at the zenith and the object is setting and so taking blues first before it gets low and extinction starts to take place.

Mind you I haven't done this myself yet. CCDSoft labels the images with the colour in the dialogue box although you can switch to any filter. So the blue if first would be labelled luminance in the files which could be confusing latter.

Greg.