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  #1  
Old 27-05-2017, 05:17 PM
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Andy01 (Andy)
My God it's full of stars

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So anyway, if you like big Nebulas...

Presenting my most ambitious project to date - Seven panel Mosaic of NGC 3372 - Eta Carina in Narrowband with RGB stars.
Shown in it's entirety to give context of where it begins & ends in space.

A few random numbers...

1 Massive Nebula
2 Telescopes
3 Attempts to get this right
4 Months data collection
5 Days processing
6 Filters
7 Panels
8 Gb file
15min subs
16 Gig of Ram barely copes
250 + NB subs (900 secs)
270 + RGB subs (60secs)
42 Data sets
80+ hrs data
188,000+ stars
several dozen drinks!

This project began six months ago when I thought it would be pretty cool to get the whole nebula. Three attempts later, it ultimately it took 6 panels to get it all in frame, very tricky object to balance and compose with assymetric elements - Gabrielle Mistral/gem cluster at one end and the smoking man at the other, so I've kept the core pretty close to the centre so the other bits can radiate outwards.

I also wanted more resolution in the core, so I brought out my William Optics FLT 110 to get more detail there.
Took forever to get all the data, and Melbourne's inclement weather didn't co-operate often so some were taken under a full moon, resulting in a trip to gradient city with the RGB & O3!

Totally a processing challenge, but perseverance and sheer force of will kept me going though, not sure I'd recommend attempting this for the feint hearted.

Registar is incredible, worth every penny of the US$250 odd I paid - it registered over 188,000 stars!
Gob smakkingly clever software

Photoshop photo merge worked well with these registered files to build the mosaic.
I've used a different technique here to overlay RGB stars over the NB ones. Basically removing the colour from them & shrinking them a bit, then overlaying the RGB. There are way too many (did I mention Registar counted over 188,000?) to use star removal technique on this image.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and kept going back and re-doing elements and processes, learned a great deal about what to do and not to do for next time, but if you don't pixel peep too closely - it seems to have turned out ok overall. 'phew!

Time to move on at last!

For what it's worth, I'd like to thank the following IIS'ers, Bert for inspiration, Marc for his forum tips on mosaics, and Mike, M&T & Fred for constructive criticism along the way.

Epic Grand Scale Image Here (revised, again thx Peter, Allan for the feedback!)

C&C always welcome

Cheers

Andy
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (EtaCarinaNB_iis.jpg)
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Last edited by Andy01; 29-05-2017 at 04:42 PM. Reason: revised image (again)
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  #2  
Old 27-05-2017, 05:54 PM
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Atmos (Colin)
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A truly epic effort Andy and the results speak for themselves! It is magnificent
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  #3  
Old 27-05-2017, 05:56 PM
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vlazg (George)
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Andy,
that is breathtakingly stunning, what an epic journey to attain this.

Congratulations
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  #4  
Old 27-05-2017, 06:01 PM
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Slawomir (Suavi)
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Herculean effort and what a spectacular result Andy

Perhaps you could add 3 more panels on the left hand side...

Just kidding! Awesome result Andy.
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  #5  
Old 27-05-2017, 06:02 PM
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Impressive Andy!
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  #6  
Old 27-05-2017, 06:08 PM
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I don't know.
There are many things I like about this image, but many I don't.

Sharpening can add snap to an image, but...and I am also guilty of pushing this envelope....not so much so in making the noise obvious.

Colour palette. Is there science behind the choice? (i.e. highlighting a particular ionization band) or is it a random selection? Why narrow-band? There are so many beautiful and natural colours to be seen within Eta Carina.

Dynamic range. Sorry. It's a mess. No real blacks. Lots of burn-outs at the white end as well. Things look compressed and flat.

But the stars, despite looking a little monochromatic, are beautiful searing points. Nice to see.

A good effort just the same.
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  #7  
Old 27-05-2017, 06:09 PM
Placidus (Mike and Trish)
Narrowing the band

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That's a wonderful result, Andy. So many hidden secrets and details. So much variety from region to region captured and presented. Excellent depth, and the mosaic is faultless.

We get the suspicion that somewhere you have a version with far more pixels on a side. Hope you'll publish it somewhere one day.

Meanwhile, we'll come back to this one rather a lot. There's much to see.




Very best,
M & T
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  #8  
Old 27-05-2017, 06:51 PM
Stevec35 (Steve)
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A lot of punch there Andy - it just about knocked me off my chair. Looks quite spectacular.

Cheers

Steve
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  #9  
Old 27-05-2017, 08:09 PM
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Vast...spectacular....original....b eautiful!!

Congratulations!!
Cheers,
Tim
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  #10  
Old 27-05-2017, 08:35 PM
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Andy01 (Andy)
My God it's full of stars

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos View Post
A truly epic effort Andy and the results speak for themselves! It is magnificent
Cheers Colin - appreciate the comments for both the effort involved & the resulting image

Quote:
Originally Posted by vlazg View Post
Andy,
that is breathtakingly stunning, what an epic journey to attain this.

Congratulations
Aah, yes George, the Chinese say the longest journey begins with a single step... sure felt like a long march at times though! cheers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Slawomir View Post
Herculean effort and what a spectacular result Andy

Perhaps you could add 3 more panels on the left hand side...

Just kidding! Awesome result Andy.
Cheers Suavi, dunno what I was thinking taking that one on, thought briefly about extending it further, but sanity prevailed and the DMA deadline looms so no - this is it for that target - lol

Quote:
Originally Posted by LewisM View Post
Impressive Andy!
Thanks Lewis, I know you don't impress easily so thanks for the compliment

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward View Post
Sorry. It's a mess. No real blacks. Lots of burn-outs at the white end as well. Things look compressed and flat.
Aaah Peter - I heard you've recently graduated from the Donald Trump school of Diplomacy, perhaps your North Korean solution is next!
Anyway, thanks for the heads up on the dynamic range & star colours, now remedied, cheers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevec35 View Post
A lot of punch there Andy - it just about knocked me off my chair. Looks quite spectacular.

Cheers

Steve
Sorry about that Steve, guess it had the desired effect though, cheers

Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart View Post
Vast...spectacular....original....b eautiful!!

Congratulations!!
Cheers,
Tim
Thanks Tim - I'm delighted that all the hard work is appreciated, cheers
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  #11  
Old 27-05-2017, 10:46 PM
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traveller (Bo)
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A huge effort Andy, esp given the less than ideal weather we have been having in Melbourne.
Bo
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  #12  
Old 27-05-2017, 11:55 PM
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cometcatcher (Kevin)
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A very fiery Eta Carina. A very lovely image Andy!
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  #13  
Old 28-05-2017, 06:57 AM
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DJScotty (Scott)
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Andy that is grand. There's so much to look at. An enormous effort.
Great to hear that registar did not fail you. Sounds like you have a similar software work flow to me so am certainly keen to add registar to mine too.
Excellent

Scott
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  #14  
Old 28-05-2017, 11:02 AM
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Spookyer (Brett)
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Hey Andy, top effort mate you have showed plenty of processing dedication for this beast.

brett
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  #15  
Old 28-05-2017, 01:05 PM
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Andy01 (Andy)
My God it's full of stars

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Quote:
Originally Posted by traveller View Post
A huge effort Andy, esp given the less than ideal weather we have been having in Melbourne.
Bo
Lol, yes the weather gods have not found favour in us Victorians - terrible really, there's been maybe only 1-2 clear nights per month this year. Cheers anyway

Quote:
Originally Posted by cometcatcher View Post
A very fiery Eta Carina. A very lovely image Andy!
Thanks Kevin - appreciate the feedback

Quote:
Originally Posted by DJScotty View Post
Andy that is grand. There's so much to look at. An enormous effort.
Great to hear that registar did not fail you. Sounds like you have a similar software work flow to me so am certainly keen to add registar to mine too.
Excellent

Scott
Thanks Scott, you won't be dissapointed with Registar - Bit of a pain for me to boot between windows & MacOS (registar is PC only) but well worth it

Quote:
Originally Posted by Spookyer View Post
Hey Andy, top effort mate you have showed plenty of processing dedication for this beast.

brett
Lol, Cheers Brett, yes it's a labour of love, or persistance or maybe just madness!
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  #16  
Old 28-05-2017, 02:14 PM
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alpal
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Nice work Andy,
especially considering Melbourne's weather.
I think the bright area around the keyhole nebula is a bit over processed
- over sharpened at too many pixels & contrast not quite right with curves.
I think if that area was improved it would be perfect.

cheers
Allan
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  #17  
Old 28-05-2017, 03:33 PM
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RickS (Rick)
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Congrats on bringing such a huge project to a conclusion, Andy! At screen size it is a stunning image. A minor nit: your blue stars aren't consistent over the whole image - looks like there's a panel or two where they are quite cyan vs the the rest where they are at the magenta end of blue.

Cheers,
Rick.
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  #18  
Old 28-05-2017, 08:10 PM
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Andy01 (Andy)
My God it's full of stars

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Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal View Post
Nice work Andy,
especially considering Melbourne's weather.
I think the bright area around the keyhole nebula is a bit over processed
- over sharpened at too many pixels & contrast not quite right with curves.
I think if that area was improved it would be perfect.

cheers
Allan
Thanks Allan, noted and corrected - see new revision at same link above, cheers & ta for the heads up!

Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS View Post
Congrats on bringing such a huge project to a conclusion, Andy! At screen size it is a stunning image. A minor nit: your blue stars aren't consistent over the whole image - looks like there's a panel or two where they are quite cyan vs the the rest where they are at the magenta end of blue.

Cheers,
Rick.
Cheers Rick, glad you liked it!
I had a devil of a time balancing those RGB panels shot under moonlight - hence the differing colours - probably too late to rectify now -
well spotted though!
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  #19  
Old 28-05-2017, 09:49 PM
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marc4darkskies (Marcus)
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That's a tremendous effort Andy and it's paid off I think. I find myself enjoying vibrant NB images and this one has that attribute in spades. Is it sailing close to the gaudy wind for some people's tastes? Probably. But the overall result is compelling.
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  #20  
Old 28-05-2017, 10:40 PM
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gregbradley
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Congrat Andy on a tremendous effort.
A wonderful image that is very compelling.

That small sensor is making you work hard as this is really only 1 maybe 2 panels with an FSQ106 and a 16803 camera.

Greg
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