Apus Flux Nebulosity (MW9) & IC4633

[RobF (Rob)]

Ever since reading about these faint nebulosities illuminated by the glow of our galaxy in Malin's "Colours of the galaxies" I've wondered if my rig would be capable of collecting a half decent image from a dark sky site. Last week I decided to have a go from 10 Chain Hill after the troublesome high cloud cleared. Initial subs didn't seem too promising, but as can the case something started to emerge after calibration and processing. A number of frames had to be discarded due to the mild breeze and some dew effects, but I was lucky in the end to be able to keep imaging through to astronomical twilight without the developing fog reaching me.

No Apod of course, but I'm chuffed to pick out the IFN in this limited field (MW9) and some of the far flung galaxies behind (IC 4633 and others).

8" Newt, QHY9
LRGB 30:30:40:40 (all 10min subs, unbinned)

(do yourself a favour and hunt down Jase's or Mike Sidonio's fantastic renditions from previous years too if this is of interest - this is quite a tiny chunk of the action for this immense cloud. See also http://www.galaxyimages.com/UNP_IFNebula.html )

[Deeno]

Thats pretty cool.
Something to aspire to

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Rob thats brilliant, I might have to have a bit of a look at this little patch of sky, to see if the extra 2" of astrograph goodness can help. It would be good to see the difference between the two scopes as they are virtually the same as each other

[atalas]

Nice shot,good work Rob.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Top marks to you for attempting to image a rarely seen portion of the sky.

Something definitely to aspire to -- going to fire up Starry Night Pro Plus and check it out, right now.

H

[multiweb (Marc)]

That's awesome Rob. I remember Jase's shot on the AAIC cover.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

It's pleasing to see images other than the usual common items, I wish more would give such objects a try, clearly as per your result it's very rewarding.
Well done.

[gregbradley]

Brilliant stuff Rob.

Did you use any particular method of bringing out the background dust?

I imagine a very flat background would be required.

Greg.

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Deeno

Thats pretty cool.
Something to aspire to

Thanks Deeno. That's exactly what I thought when I first saw David Malin's inverse film AAO image

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

Rob thats brilliant, I might have to have a bit of a look at this little patch of sky, to see if the extra 2" of astrograph goodness can help. It would be good to see the difference between the two scopes as they are virtually the same as each other

I think it'd be a good one for a few mosaic'd frames too Brendan which you could suck down faster. You need quite a bit of data of course to get decent signal to noise of course - I'm only just starting to get in the ball park here.

Originally Posted by atalas

Nice shot,good work Rob.

Thanks for looking Louie

Originally Posted by Octane

Top marks to you for attempting to image a rarely seen portion of the sky.

Something definitely to aspire to -- going to fire up Starry Night Pro Plus and check it out, right now.

H

Thanks Humayun - its nice to get off the beaten track sometimes. I went way out on a limb with this Fri night expecting the clouds to clear in the first place after driving out to Peter's. I was a bit worried at the time I was wasting those precious few hours of imaging time, so glad something came out of it!

Originally Posted by multiweb

That's awesome Rob. I remember Jase's shot on the AAIC cover.

Yes, it sure was a stunner Marc. Jason and Mike's images are worth looking at just to get a feel for how big the extent of the cloud is too. I'd always thought this field was be the place to try with my roughly 1 degree field, but there are plenty of other interesting spots too.

Originally Posted by Alchemy

It's pleasing to see images other than the usual common items, I wish more would give such objects a try, clearly as per your result it's very rewarding.
Well done.

Cheers Clive. I had trouble believing this could really be lit by the combined glow of the milky way when first read up on it. Mind blowing really. The book has lots of wonderful detail about reflection versus emission nebs etc which was fascinating, but I'd never heard/understood this type of object previously.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Brilliant stuff Rob.

Did you use any particular method of bringing out the background dust?

I imagine a very flat background would be required.

Greg.

Thanks for that Greg. I don't think Tom Davis is in any danger with my dust processing skills though!
It was primarily done in Pixinsight with usual cal'ing, alignment, integration histogram stretch and some curves on the combined RGB and L separately. I experimented with some deconv but too much noise for the limited L data. The lum data was pushed a fair bit harder with noise reduction. I tried stretching the neb with the stars masked but couldn't make it look natural. The only slightly tricky thing was some layered Shadows/Highlights in Photoshop in the end, that was again de-noised before blending back in, with final colour/sat tweaking. I had hoped to get a bit more data, but a slight breeze made it tough - the Newt is so vulnerable in the open with the dew shield on the end.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Mosaic frames i have yet to attempt, a lot of work is involved in doing them because of the mono cam Plus my FOV is smaller than yours, im currently running at .93 seconds of arc per pixel with the FOV about 55 x 38 ish minutes. Or to give you a idea of the size, i can fit the main portion of M42 in but the outer wisps are cut off.

SNR is what the 254 is good for at F4.7 it hurtles the photons down at a fast rate Ill see how i go with time and where this object is placed so that i can have a start on it. Im feeling that this is a LRGB target only with long exposure times 15 even out to 20 min to really start capturing the flux.

Keep up the good work, 1 for the newt lovers

[RobF (Rob)]

Its about -77 deg DEC from memory Brendan, so the tracking is that much trickier, although you may sniff at that with your new super-duper OAG setup! I would have tried for it from the 'burbs just for fun, but it only gets over the rear hedge for a few hrs in the early AM currently.

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

Keep up the good work, 1 for the newt lovers

Yep - go the newts!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Really excellent result Rob, nicely processed...it's a fabulous expansive area, as Jasons version reveals and I call it Sarah's Nebula and as you suggest the region is very dear to my heart

Mike

[RobF (Rob)]

Tragic story Mike - must have knocked your whole family for six. I was having a read about it on your site a little while ago - a very fitting monument to her rather than a reminder of a terrible time. Well, here's another one to Sarah then...