So anyway, if you like big Nebulas...

[Andy01 (Andy)]

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

[Atmos (Colin)]

A truly epic effort Andy and the results speak for themselves! It is magnificent

[vlazg (George)]

Andy,
that is breathtakingly stunning, what an epic journey to attain this.

Congratulations

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

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.

[LewisM]

Impressive Andy!

[Peter Ward]

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.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

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

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

A lot of punch there Andy - it just about knocked me off my chair. Looks quite spectacular.

Cheers

Steve

[topheart]

Vast...spectacular....original....b eautiful!!

Congratulations!!
Cheers,
Tim

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

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

Originally Posted by vlazg

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

Originally Posted by Slawomir

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

Originally Posted by LewisM

Impressive Andy!

Thanks Lewis, I know you don't impress easily so thanks for the compliment

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

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

Originally Posted by Stevec35

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

Originally Posted by topheart

Vast...spectacular....original....b eautiful!!

Congratulations!!
Cheers,
Tim

Thanks Tim - I'm delighted that all the hard work is appreciated, cheers

[traveller (Bo)]

A huge effort Andy, esp given the less than ideal weather we have been having in Melbourne.
Bo

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

A very fiery Eta Carina. A very lovely image Andy!

[DJScotty (Scott)]

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

[Spookyer (Brett)]

Hey Andy, top effort mate you have showed plenty of processing dedication for this beast.

brett

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by traveller

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

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

A very fiery Eta Carina. A very lovely image Andy!

Thanks Kevin - appreciate the feedback

Originally Posted by DJScotty

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

Originally Posted by Spookyer

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!

[alpal]

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

[RickS (Rick)]

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.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by alpal

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!

Originally Posted by RickS

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!

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

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.

[gregbradley]

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