Thors Helmet 8 hours CDK

[gregbradley]

I took this a while ago during a period of clear weather.

This has some SII, Ha as well as LRGB in it. I took some O111 as well but it does not add much and so I did not include it.

Planewave CDK 17, Paramount ME, FLI Proline 16803, Astrodon Gen 11 filters.

SII Ha LRGB 50 60 210 40 50 50.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/132908177

I made a breakthrough in how I do flat fields with this setup and this enabled me to process this image. The original processing was not bringing out the detail due to vignetting and poor flats.

Greg.

Greg.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Greg,

That is just sensational.

BUT, you have been very heavy handed with your masking -- there is very clear delineation between boundaries. Time to Gaussian blur or deal with the "seams" in a different way.

H

[troypiggo (Troy)]

That's just epic

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

That has clearly set the benchmark. Awesome image.

[Peter Ward]

Hummm...sorry to say it Greg but there is something not quite right here.

The sharp diagonal features I have never seen in *any* other images of Thor's Helmet, amateur or Pro, hence I strongly suspect they are processing or gradient artifacts rather than real structures...

There is some great data there, you just need to tease it out.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

My first impression was wow, then I noticed those straight edged triangular shapped sun ray like red swaths and thought huh? ...they look strange.

If they are not processing artifacts then this is a spectacular image, even if they are, bah who casres, still looks good

Again I love the grand scale of your presentations with this new scope, real imapct there.

Mike

[allan gould]

A searchlight in the night. Just love the dramatic effect and a superb photo. Artifact or not - its a great image.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by peter_4059

That has clearly set the benchmark. Awesome image.

Thanks Peter.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Hummm...sorry to say it Greg but there is something not quite right here.

The sharp diagonal features I have never seen in *any* other images of Thor's Helmet, amateur or Pro, hence I strongly suspect they are processing or gradient artifacts rather than real structures...

There is some great data there, you just need to tease it out.

Yes there was an error in several of the masks. It got painted when it should not have. I've corrected it now and it looks more normal.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

My first impression was wow, then I noticed those straight edged triangular shapped sun ray like red swaths and thought huh? ...they look strange.

If they are not processing artifacts then this is a spectacular image, even if they are, bah who casres, still looks good

Again I love the grand scale of your presentations with this new scope, real imapct there.

Mike

I did a repro of it as Humi picked up the problem with some of the masks. They had an error in them. There are some diagonal lines up in the top blue area of nebula. I think this is streaks from a bright star out of the FOV or at least I suspect they are. I have since flocked the shroud of my secondary and Planewave are making me a secondary shroud with a baffle machined in. Stray light reflections from bright out of field stars has been a weak point with this scope. Its really the only problem I have had with it so if the flocking or new shroud helps there it will be great.

Originally Posted by allan gould

A searchlight in the night. Just love the dramatic effect and a superb photo. Artifact or not - its a great image.

Thanks Allan. The repro is still dramatic I hope.

Greg.

[John Hothersall]

Thats a fine result, did not think this had much S2 in it, I got quite a bit of O3 in my attempt.

John.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Ah huh! they were imposters, I knew it

Mike

[renormalised (Carl)]

Excellent work, Greg

[Fabiomax (Fabiomassimo)]

What a beautiful image! beautiful colors and shades.
Cheers,
Fabiomax

[Ric]

Blimey, what an awesome image.

Excellent work Greg

[alan meehan (Alan)]

Good show Greg stunning shot,glad to see you worked out your flat fields well done
AL

[telecasterguru (Frank)]

Pretty fine image with lots of depth.

Frank

[Lester]

Very nice image Greg showing the outer regions well. Thanks for the view.

[prokyon (Werner Probst)]

Wow, such a difficult object and so many details and nice colours.

Cheers

Werner

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by John Hothersall

Thats a fine result, did not think this had much S2 in it, I got quite a bit of O3 in my attempt.

John.

Thanks John. Yes SII was quite detailed. I had the SII filter in by mistake mislabelling it as Ha. They look similar as filters physically. OIII had the 2 arms a bit and nothing else in mine (assuming of course I labelled the filters correctly!! I must get a 7 position filter wheel at some point.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Ah huh! they were imposters, I knew it

Mike

Yeah, hopefully fixed now. I was also told by one guy the carbon fibre struts can cause reflections and to put black material over the ones above the mirror.

Originally Posted by renormalised

Excellent work, Greg

Thanks for that. I was happy to get the image as it wasn't looking too promising at the start before I worked out a good flat routine.

Originally Posted by Fabiomax

What a beautiful image! beautiful colors and shades.
Cheers,
Fabiomax

Thanks Fabio. Cheers mate,

Originally Posted by Ric

Blimey, what an awesome image.

Excellent work Greg

Thanks Ric. It probably is my most involved processing on any image to date. A few new techniques came in handy.

Originally Posted by alan meehan

Good show Greg stunning shot,glad to see you worked out your flat fields well done
AL

Yes the flats sorted are vital with this scope more so than any other I have used. Without a good flats routine you'll be throwing out a lot of images with this big 16803 chip.

Originally Posted by telecasterguru

Pretty fine image with lots of depth.

Frank

Thanks Frank. The 17 inches of aperture really gets a lot of depth. I am pleased that aperture did rule in this instance.

Originally Posted by Lester

Very nice image Greg showing the outer regions well. Thanks for the view.

Thanks Lester. They came out better than I expected.

Originally Posted by prokyon

Wow, such a difficult object and so many details and nice colours.

Cheers

Werner

Thanks Werner. It is a difficult object being so dim.

Greg.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Very Impressive.

[Peter Ward]

Ah! Now the painted masks are gone, that's much better!