LMC core - Snake Valley - March 2018

rcheshire (Rowland) · #1 02-04-2018, 08:52 PM

The middle of the Large Magellanic Cloud - This was never going to be an easy target - more of a learning exercise. StarTools has dressed it up a little.

Technical...

~2 hours of 3 minute subs @ iso800. Cooled 0C FL ~255 with a 1.6 crop factor (450D).

Preprocessing in Asterism - Super-bias defect map and flat.

Guiding was a little inconsistent (all fixed now). Would have taken a new set of subs using a different strategy but the weather intervened.

Lots more shorter exposures should produce better stars and detail in the Tarantula.

There are some interesting areas of Green nebulosity, which I presume is OIII - interesting targets with a lot more FL.

PKay (Peter) · #2 03-04-2018, 08:21 AM

Good one Rowland

You certainly have captured a lot of stars!
Good focus and lots of colour.

Have another go with less stretching to see the difference.

And yes shorter subs would have changed things.

xelasnave · #3 03-04-2018, 08:37 AM

Hi Rowland
That is a very pleasing image well done.
Alex

raymo · #4 03-04-2018, 07:33 PM

I agree, nice job Rowland, but I feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. IMHO
it would have been better to either show the whole thing, or go in closer and image a specific object, or objects within it.
raymo

rcheshire (Rowland) · #5 04-04-2018, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PKay

Good one Rowland

You certainly have captured a lot of stars!
Good focus and lots of colour.

Have another go with less stretching to see the difference.

And yes shorter subs would have changed things.

Thanks PKay. Yes lots of stars... I have taken your advice and attached a less vibrant but probably more faithful rendition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Hi Rowland
That is a very pleasing image well done.
Alex

Thanks Alex. A work in progress

Quote:

Originally Posted by raymo

I agree, nice job Rowland, but I feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. IMHO
it would have been better to either show the whole thing, or go in closer and image a specific object, or objects within it.
raymo

Couldn't agree more Raymo. Perhaps the less saturated version in which I have attempted to extract the multitude of features in this region is a better approach.

It's got some way to go but I appreciate the feedback. Next new moon if the weather holds - but we need the water.

silv (Annette) · #6 04-04-2018, 03:07 PM

I like them both.
Can you see the extreme green, totally circular dot in the first image? It's in the lower eighth , a bit to the right from the center.
What's that?

rcheshire (Rowland) · #7 04-04-2018, 06:23 PM

Thanks Annette.

The green is glowing oxygen. But I'm not yet sure of the exact identity of the nebula. Similar to a description of green in the ghost nebula, the energy is provided by a solar wind emanating from nearby stars or very high temperature gas.

I'm sure someone can answer this a little better.

I am inclined to Raymo's suggestion to concentrate on chunks of the LMC. There is a myriad of interesting features - should make it a project.