M16 pillars higher res

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Shiraz

70 subs at 5 minutes taken over few months whenever Ha seeing was good and I wasn't doing something else. EQ6 with a 250f4 Newtonian, RCC1 and H694 camera - 6nm Ha.
No AO, just a converted finderscope and QHY5L2 as the guider. Processing was drizzle 2x followed by deconvolution on linear data with (PI derived) synthetic star PSF. then stretching and a little bit of local wavelet sharpening and noise reduction. Stars were in pretty good shape, but the combination of drizzle and deconvolution produced minor artefacts at the edges of the brightest ones, so they were tidied up in StarTools - hence the perfect roundness. Then image was downsized 0.75 and cropped from 13.5mp to 7.1mp for composition and to remove regions where minor setup changes had led to poor overlap.

Thanks for that Ray. I thought as much. A truly inspiring image. Shows what stock equipment can do in the right hands.

[Regulus (Trevor)]

Amazing. Really nice work Ray.

[Peter Ward]

Been away for a bit and missed this one...

Wow!!

Very clever data capture and selection plus inspired use of processing tools, for a simply fantastic result

I for one, will be going back to the drawing board.. I think you set a new standard here Ray. Well done

[DaveNZ (Dave)]

Wonderful effort. I love those round stars. I might have to purchase startools.

Dave

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by Octane

Jaw-dropping doesn't even begin to describe this image.

I can only imagine what it'd look like in the full HST SHO palette!

H

Thanks very much H. I will persevere with colour, but am not very skilled in that area.

Originally Posted by dvj

Well my, my. Puts those 17" and 20" results on lofty peaks to shame doesn't it? Yeah, the stars are too round, too hard. It's not color, blah, blah, blah. This is a masterpiece of detail and processing talent.

Do we know how drizzle is different than dither?

j

Thanks very much John - that is a very generous comment.

I guess the difference between this and the big boys on the hilltops is that they can routinely get a good set of hi res data in a single night. It took me a couple of months of scratching around to find and use the rare periods of fairly good seeing - being close to the sea has advantages, but good seeing is not one of them - it was still fun though.

As I understand it, dither is required to move the stars around in the subs. Drizzle upsamples and fills in missing data using offset real data from the dithered images, rather than interpolation. In that way it recovers some of the information that was scrambled by undersampling in the original images. Should work really well with your system - might be an alternative to the smaller pixels that you mentioned in another thread. Maybe worth a read http://www.adass.org/adass/proceedings/adass99/O6-02/

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Ummm? ...wow?

Soooo, that from a simple fast Newt and little starlightxpress huh? ....well, must get me one of those

The seeing, careful sub selection, and drizzle aside, t'is quite amazing sir

Mike

Thanks Mike. Yeah, these little cams are pretty cool eh - go well with a fast Newtonian. Actually it was good fun seeing how far the system could be pushed - there is some very capable software out there now.

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Holy cow Ray!!

That definitely deserves one of these ...

And one of these ....
You're certainly throwing down the gauntlet to the rest of us would-be imagers aren't you! Now let's see the colour!!

Wow, thanks very much Marcus - very generous of you. All right, I will keep trying with colour, but I have a lot of trouble with it.

Originally Posted by alpal

Hi Ray,
Wow - that is so sharp & crisp.
There is hope for all of us who have Newts. instead of RCOS systems.

cheers
Allan

Hi Allan. Thanks for the comments. I would still accept an RCOS if anyone wants to get rid of one

Originally Posted by multiweb

Thanks for that Ray. I thought as much. A truly inspiring image. Shows what stock equipment can do in the right hands.

Thanks again Marc.

Originally Posted by Regulus

Amazing. Really nice work Ray.

Thank you Trevor

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Been away for a bit and missed this one...

Wow!!

Very clever data capture and selection plus inspired use of processing tools, for a simply fantastic result

I for one, will be going back to the drawing board.. I think you set a new standard here Ray. Well done

Very generous of you Peter - thank you. super-resolution might be very useful technique for your RH - you could maybe try for a 64mp image at 0.8arcsec for example...

Originally Posted by DaveNZ

Wonderful effort. I love those round stars. I might have to purchase startools.

Dave

Hi Dave. yep, StarTools is a must have in my books. I concentrated solely on the nebula and left the stars to look after themselves - StarTools cleaned up the mess that resulted very effectively - possibly too well .

regards Ray

[DJT (David)]

That is a stunning image, top job

[tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook)]

Superb Ray!

I think We'll have to nickname you Mr Hubble!

And I mean that sincerely.

Cheers,

Justin.

[alpal]

Ray,

Hi Allan. Thanks for the comments. I would still accept an RCOS if anyone wants to get rid of one

I think you've got better results than an RCOS.

Did you spend a lot of time getting the spacing just right for your corrector?
I want to know your secret.

cheers
Allan

[Ross G]

A great photo Ray.

Sharp, detailed and nice tones.

Ross.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by DJT

That is a stunning image, top job

thanks David, appreciated

Originally Posted by tilbrook@rbe.ne

Superb Ray!

I think We'll have to nickname you Mr Hubble!

And I mean that sincerely.

Cheers,

Justin.

Hi Justin. Thanks very much for your generosity. My wife calls me "you idiot", which probably means that I already have a nickname.

Originally Posted by alpal

Ray,


I think you've got better results than an RCOS.

Did you spend a lot of time getting the spacing just right for your corrector?
I want to know your secret.

cheers
Allan

Hi Allan. Thank you. No secret Mate - I really think that it just comes down to seeing. If that is good we have a chance, but we don't get much good seeing down under (most of our population lives near sea level).
I spent a fair time sorting out the corrector spacing, but the main thing with the RCC1 seems to be that the collimation needs to be spot on to get good results. And I spent many hours squaring up the CCD and regularly refocus - as you know, a few tens of microns make a big difference with fast scopes.

Originally Posted by Ross G

A great photo Ray.

Sharp, detailed and nice tones.

Ross.

Thank you Ross.

regards Ray

[alpal]

Ray,

Hi Allan. Thank you. No secret Mate - I really think that it just comes down to seeing. If that is good we have a chance, but we don't get much good seeing down under (most of our population lives near sea level).
I spent a fair time sorting out the corrector spacing, but the main thing with the RCC1 seems to be that the collimation needs to be spot on to get good results. And I spent many hours squaring up the CCD and regularly refocus - as you know, a few tens of microns make a big difference with fast scopes.

Hi Ray,
thanks for your reply.
I also have an RCC1
see pic:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/247194...in/photostream

I think I need to spend more time on the spacing using the Varilock
after viewing your pic.
It's amazing that the RCC1 works so well for a $250 corrector.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by alpal

Ray,

I think you've got better results than an RCOS.

cheers
Allan

And there in lies the myth, in the end seeing is absolute king, doesn't matter how big or how much your scope is worth or how catchy its name is, if it doesn't get under really steady skies most people would be hard pressed to see any advantage

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

A great image Ray - love it!

Steve

[sjastro]

Wonderful resolution Ray.

Steven

[alpal]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

And there in lies the myth, in the end seeing is absolute king, doesn't matter how big or how much your scope is worth or how catchy its name is, if it doesn't get under really steady skies most people would be hard pressed to see any advantage

Well it must have been a fluke night at Ardrossan south Australia
which is at sea level.

Imagine how good our results would be if we all had robotic scopes at Siding Springs
at altitude & many more clear nights?

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by alpal

Ray,

Hi Ray,
thanks for your reply.
I also have an RCC1
see pic:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/247194...in/photostream

I think I need to spend more time on the spacing using the Varilock
after viewing your pic.
It's amazing that the RCC1 works so well for a $250 corrector.

cheers
Allan

Hi Allan - yep, they are really good value - as far as I can see, the RCC1 does nothing to the image but remove the coma.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

And there in lies the myth, in the end seeing is absolute king, doesn't matter how big or how much your scope is worth or how catchy its name is, if it doesn't get under really steady skies most people would be hard pressed to see any advantage

Originally Posted by Stevec35

A great image Ray - love it!

Steve

Hi Steve - thanks for the comment

Originally Posted by sjastro

Wonderful resolution Ray.

Steven

thanks very much Steven

Originally Posted by alpal

Well it must have been a fluke night at Ardrossan south Australia
which is at sea level.

Imagine how good our results would be if we all had robotic scopes at Siding Springs
at altitude & many more clear nights?

It wasn't a fluke Allan, it was nearly a dozen flukes - I switched over to M16 whenever the Ha seeing was exceptional (which is better than 2.5 arcsec FWHM around here) and the moon was up (and I was not doing anything else). The shortest bracket of images was taken in a 15 minute burst of good seeing and the ensemble was gathered over months. It would be great to have a better site, but part of the fun is that whoooa feeling when the seeing comes good .

regards Ray

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by alpal

Well it must have been a fluke night at Ardrossan south Australia
which is at sea level.

Imagine how good our results would be if we all had robotic scopes at Siding Springs
at altitude & many more clear nights?

Absolutely, I've been hammering a galaxy over recent days and the variation in the seeing bewteen nights has been ridiculous, one night was so bad I just collecetd RGB another night saw excellent seeing, the difference in teh subs can be huge, if the nights of excellent seeing were more numerous it woudl be great. The idea of only collecting and using the very best sharpest subs has plenty of merit but time is precious so, unless we are automated, we ususally end up using at least some of the less than aptimal data... how good would it be if most nights were good ala up in the Chilean Andes etc where nights with seeing over 1" are considered less than optimal

Mike

[alpal]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Absolutely, I've been hammering a galaxy over recent days and the variation in the seeing bewteen nights has been ridiculous, one night was so bad I just collecetd RGB another night saw excellent seeing, the difference in teh subs can be huge, if the nights of excellent seeing were more numerous it woudl be great. The idea of only collecting and using the very best sharpest subs has plenty of merit but time is precious so, unless we are automated, we ususally end up using at least some of the less than aptimal data... how good would it be if most nights were good ala up in the Chilean Andes etc where nights with seeing over 1" are considered less than optimal

Mike

Yes Mike,
I've seen the same thing in Melbourne.
It's gone from a FWHM of 2 arc seconds to over 6 arc seconds in the space of 2 hours.
As Ray wrote - he grabbed the best subs over many months.
Looks like that is the way to go to push the limits.
I look forward to your galaxy pic.

cheers
Allan

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Exceptional Ray, a fantastic resolution with details usually not seen in amateur-ish images
Seems almost to be floating around the pillars in a spaceship..

I am speechless

Marco

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by marco

Exceptional Ray, a fantastic resolution with details usually not seen in amateur-ish images
Seems almost to be floating around the pillars in a spaceship..

I am speechless

Marco

that's a very generous comment Marco - thank you.

As I understand it, there is a slightly surreal aspect to the M16 pillars in that they have possibly already been destroyed by a SN shockwave. Great that the light still has the pre-damage view - they are such a beautiful structure.

regards Ray