A Dragon Strikes from the darkness NGC 6188

Imme (Jon) · #1 18-07-2020, 05:09 PM

I finished this one on June 29th after what seemed like a couple months of dodging cloudy skies.

I held off posting as I decided to throw it in the ring for the 2020 David Malin Awards which closed on the 30th.....winners announced this afternoon on a Zoom presentation.
I won’t spoil the surprise by saying who won the Deep Sky section

So here it is, my Fighting Dragons of Ara in SHO.

I took approx 15 hours per channel for this one however only stacked the best 9-10 hours of each using DSS
O3/S2 were 10 minute exposures, Ha was 7.5 minutes (Astrodon filters)
Camera - ASI1600
WO FLT-132
Self tuned EQ-6
SGP for capture
PHD2 for guiding
Star tools for processing

Larger version here - https://www.astrobin.com/full/o6hopx/0/

All in all.....pretty happy with the result!

Paul Haese · #2 18-07-2020, 05:16 PM

I will, well done on a lovely image and win.

Placidus (Mike and Trish) · #3 18-07-2020, 05:21 PM

Superb! The treatment of the dust is especially fine. The OIII shock fronts, often overlooked, came out well.

Retrograde (Pete) · #4 18-07-2020, 05:26 PM

Congratulations Jon. A fine image & a well-deserved win.

multiweb (Marc) · #5 18-07-2020, 06:23 PM

That's really very good. The highres is flawless.

peter_4059 (Peter) · #6 18-07-2020, 06:39 PM

Great result Jon. Congratulations.

Peter Ward · #7 18-07-2020, 06:48 PM

Again, well done Jon.

Not much more to say...you've won a MALIN! Enjoy

graham.hobart (Graham stevens) · #8 18-07-2020, 06:54 PM

truly a deep and magical image- I am always blown away with what people are producing now - such high quality

and congratulations on the Malin!!

Slawomir (Suavi) · #9 18-07-2020, 06:58 PM

Congratulations Jon - fantastic image

Anth10 (Anthony M) · #10 18-07-2020, 07:41 PM

Jon,
You must be over the moon mate, so happy for you - congratulations!

Cheers 🍻

Anth

Mickoid (Michael) · #11 18-07-2020, 09:29 PM

Congratulations Jon. See, I told you those Nano Trackers work well!

Imme (Jon) · #12 18-07-2020, 10:11 PM

Thanks everyone, pretty stoked with the win. I’m a bit numb about it to be honest........humbled and in a little disbelief actually.

In all honesty though credit goes to many of the people who have commented on this and other threads I’ve posted on in the past.
The learning experience this forum provides is amazing.....the support and patience I’ve received freely from people who in reality are strangers to me in real life has allowed me to get to the point I am at today in my Astro journey.

I’ve had comments on pictures I’ve posted which at the time I thought were overly harsh because I thought the pic I posted was good.....but what those comments did was point out obvious floors I had which needed to be worked on. Every negative was a learning opportunity for me, every positive one was encouragement.

I need to especially say thanks to Mickoid......Mike is an old mate of my brother in law who came to visit my place after I bought it when he heard I had an old decommissioned observatory here (The former commercially operated Macedon Ranges Observatory).
I’d had no previous experience in astrophotography and was merely an observer that night. When he came he showed me some pictures he had taken on his phone and I was blown away by what I saw....that started my passion. A week later I sent him a pic I had taken of the Milky Way through a DSLR.....I thought it was good, but he tweaked the processing and stretched it to reveal things I had never seen before.........from that moment on I was hooked.

Overall though, as I said earlier, THIS community here is an amazing resource and I thank you all for the patience you have shown both me and others who are just starting their journey.

I think what my win shows is that the most expensive equipment isn’t always needed to produce a good photo. I have an eq6 I tuned myself, the rest of the equipment I own is second hand, purchased here on ISS. My dew strap for gods sake is a beer keg warmer connected to a light dimmer switch I had sitting in the shed!!!

Thanks everyone for the positives.......