Eta Carina mosaic

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

My completed mosaic of the Eta Carina Nebula (NGC 3372). It appears so large in the sky that it needs more than the 9 panels I could give it. This glorious star forming region lies a whopping 9,000 light years away and is actually much larger and brighter than the more famous Great Orion Nebula.

Final image is slightly cut down from the 9 original panels. Each panel contains 20x 30-second exposures at ISO 200 with a Nikon D5100 on a 6" F/5 Newtonian reflector. A Hutech IDAS light pollution filter and a GSO coma corrector were used. Unguided on HEQ5 pro mount. No calibration images were used, though subs were effectively dithered. All images captured from Wallaroo, near Canberra Australia.

A larger version can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3upf3d38rn...mosaic_med.jpg

[raymo]

Great job Cam; that's a ripper. I think the need for darks is going to
diminish anyway as the latest cameras get quieter and quieter.
raymo

[blink138 (Pat)]

well done mate for attempting a mosaic in the first place, surely not an easy task without the difficulty of getting a half decent image!
pat

[jsmoraes (Jorge)]

Very beautiful image and great work. Congratulations !

[Regulus (Trevor)]

This is lovely Cam. The muted tones do it real justice. One of the best Eta Carinas I've seen.
Well done.

Trev

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Originally Posted by raymo

Great job Cam; that's a ripper. I think the need for darks is going to diminish anyway as the latest cameras get quieter and quieter.

Thanks Raymo. I think you're right. Flats are probably the most important, to remove vignetting and dust donuts. I just couldn't be bothered.

Originally Posted by blink138

well done mate for attempting a mosaic in the first place, surely not an easy task without the difficulty of getting a half decent image!
pat

Thanks Pat. I've tried doing mosaics a few times now because I have such a limited field of view, but I'm effectively doing it by hand. I need to come up with a better way to move to between panels.

Originally Posted by jsmorales

Very beautiful image and great work. Congratulations !

Thanks Jorge. I think this is the best images I've ever taken. I'm very proud of it.

Originally Posted by Regulus

This is lovely Cam. The muted tones do it real justice. One of the best Eta Carinas I've seen.
Well done.

Trev

Thanks Trevor, that means a lot! I've seen so many Eta's that are super saturated but I'm very happy with this. It feels natural to me.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Great job Cam! That is a beautiful shot and I love those super sharp stars!
Cheers
Jo

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Originally Posted by nebulosity.

Great job Cam! That is a beautiful shot and I love those super sharp stars!
Cheers
Jo

Thanks Jo! I haven't seen any pics from you lately - hope everything is going okay?

I actually made some minor changes that I might post soon. I made a layer mask to smooth the background (it's really noisy in the version I linked) and I'd forgotten to use HLVG on this one too. I should actually rework it from scratch...

[multiweb (Marc)]

That looks very good Cam. Well done. Fantastic colors.

[Tamtarn]

A super mosaic, excellent clarity and I love the natural tones of the DSLR.
Very deserving of posting in Deep Space
Barb

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Originally Posted by Tamtarn

A super mosaic, excellent clarity and I love the natural tones of the DSLR.
Very deserving of posting in Deep Space
Barb

Thanks very much Barb! I've reprocessed and posted in the Deep Space forum. Cheers for the encouragement.
-Cam

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Originally Posted by LightningNZ

Thanks Jo! I haven't seen any pics from you lately - hope everything is going okay?

I actually made some minor changes that I might post soon. I made a layer mask to smooth the background (it's really noisy in the version I linked) and I'd forgotten to use HLVG on this one too. I should actually rework it from scratch...

Thanks Cam, the reason I haven't posted any shots is because I have been spending all my spare time in the last year working on building a 3 axis stabilised high altitude balloon payload, from which I hope to do long exposure wide angle shots of the sky from above the atmosphere. It is almost finished so hopefully in a few months I might have something interesting to show.

Saw your repro in the Deep Sky section, lovely final result!

Cheers
Jo

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Originally Posted by nebulosity.

Thanks Cam, the reason I haven't posted any shots is because I have been spending all my spare time in the last year working on building a 3 axis stabilised high altitude balloon payload, from which I hope to do long exposure wide angle shots of the sky from above the atmosphere. It is almost finished so hopefully in a few months I might have something interesting to show.

Saw your repro in the Deep Sky section, lovely final result!

Cheers
Jo

Thanks agian Jo, and geez if that isn't the coolest project... good luck with it all. I look forward to the results.

For myself I've decided that I need to improve my mounting. I'll start with building a custom tripod or pier. Just need to work out what will go in my car easiest.

[bigjoe (JOSEPH)]

Great work Cam!

Just goes to show what some hard work and patience can

accomplish on that mount.

bigjoe.

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Originally Posted by bigjoe

Great work Cam!

Just goes to show what some hard work and patience can

accomplish on that mount.

bigjoe.

Thanks Joe. I can be a bit of a slog as it is. I'll probably take the mount apart soon and see if I can free up the movement a bit. I'd like to have a crack at building a new tripod or portable pier for it too.

Originally Posted by multiweb

That looks very good Cam. Well done. Fantastic colors.

Thanks Marc, much appreciated. I struggled to get decent colours with such short total exposure. I do like the almost "visual" appearance of nebulae with the unmodded camera. Just wish I modded one to take luminance data too.