4.310 billion pixel Orion Image -my most ambitious project to date

[OzRob (Rob)]

That's wonderful stuff.

[Ross G]

An amazing photo Greg.

I love the colours.


Ross.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Love the field and especially the bottom and bottom left of the pic. So sharp, colourful and clear. The barnard loop and the region around M78 came up a treat. The top around the witch head is hard to see though so are all the Ha regions between the HH and M42 compared to Marco recent IOTW. Maybe more data is needed in those area. Nonetheless a top shot.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by sadia

this is absolutely wonderful Greg . Bottom left half is my fav.

Yes that is a very interesting part of the area.

Originally Posted by suma126

all i can its breathtaking I'm going to save this as a screen saver

Originally Posted by renormalised

Brilliant!!!

Thanks very much. I am glad you liked it.

Pity you lost 5-6 hours of subs....it might've been even better than what it already is. The Loop is spectacular, stars are nice and tight, colour excellent

There's always next year! I intend to add more panels next year.
Its one of those areas that could be a massive image and still be interesting.

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

That's an awesome image Greg!! Just spectacular ... I see a DM award in your future ! Well done!!

Wouldn't mind seeing a higher res version though. That's the problem with large mosaics - you can't display them (easily).

3 Billion pixels?

Cheers, Marcus

Cheers Marcus. I'll see what I have in the large image stakes. Is 300mb OK? hehe. I can probably rig something up.

Originally Posted by richardo

This is superb Greg!!
Huge amount of detailed areas and everything is just right colour wise, intensity and the Ha areas are just perfect.

Top stuff and very much worth the time, travelling and effort when you get results like this.

Very well done.

All the best
Rich

Thanks Rich. I am happy how it turned out. I am also happy I managed to process a mosaic! Its tricky to get the balances between the panels.

Originally Posted by paulF

Wow Greg! Speechless!! Amazing effort and thus an amazing image!

Thanks Paul. It is a magnificent area of the sky.

Originally Posted by troypiggo

Absolutely breathtaking. Can't even comprehend the time taken to process this, let alone capture the data, calibrate, combine etc. Mucho kudos to you!

Thanks for that. It fills an otherwise idle day over the Christmas break waiting for night to come around again!

Originally Posted by CometGuy

Whoa Greg..thats impressive!

Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by atalas

Excellent Greg!

Cheers Louie.

Originally Posted by telemarker

You photon hog!!!

Kidding aside, that is a seriously good image. Something to be proud of.

Regards
Keith

Yes I definitely got my fair share of photons over that break. It makes up for the miserable year the year before!

Originally Posted by A23649

saw this and went "wow, thats my new desktop screen saver!"

love these massive mosaics

That's great. I am hope it makes your computer look good.

Originally Posted by Leonardo70

Greg ... WOW

Ciao,
Leo

Ciao Leo.

Originally Posted by seeker372011

Stunning

Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by Tandum

Amazing Greg. You definately have too much time on your hands

Yes that's true at Christmas.

Originally Posted by marco

Excellent sharpness here Greg! These mosaics are lots of fun, aren't they? If you allow me a suggestion, I would just tune a bit the luminosity of both the Barnard loop and M42 core to avoid them to over-saturate and give to this wonderful framing a more natural look

Clear Skies
Marco

Cheers Marco. I lowered the luminosity of the roughly lower half and adjusted the colour of M42 a tad. M42 core though to my taste and previous images seems OK. It has been represented differently in different images. Some show it a bit colourless, some like mine, some a bit yellowish. I think depending on the resolution but perhaps also because it is so bright it tends to be hard to get a stable rendition of it. In my other attempts at M42 the core area has come out that way so I picked the best of my earlier images (TEC180fl image) and used that without much modification.

Originally Posted by TrevorW

What can you say

Thanks Trev.

Originally Posted by peter_4059

It took a long time to download and you can see why - stunning!

I am glad I used an I7 lappie. It would be hard on my older core duo 2.
The main image was around 300mb.

Originally Posted by RobF

Just wonderful. I'm going swimming in Orion for a while now.....

Hehe. Yes there is a lot in there.

Originally Posted by Octane

Goodness me, Greg. Wow!

I do agree with Marco's summary of processing, though. Is there any chance you could perhaps turn down the luminance of the brighter portions in Barnard's Loop?

Staggering effort -- very impressed!

H

Cheers Humi. I addressed the lower half as per Marco's suggestion and tweaked the colour of M42 just a little to get the blues a bit better.

Barnards Loop did come out strongly. I was surprised by that as it is normally only seen in very wide 50mm lens type shots and it seems dim then.

Originally Posted by OzRob

That's wonderful stuff.

Cheers Rob.

Originally Posted by Ross G

An amazing photo Greg.

I love the colours.


Ross.

Thanks Ross. It is a wonderland in the sky.

Originally Posted by multiweb

Love the field and especially the bottom and bottom left of the pic. So sharp, colourful and clear. The barnard loop and the region around M78 came up a treat. The top around the witch head is hard to see though so are all the Ha regions between the HH and M42 compared to Marco recent IOTW. Maybe more data is needed in those area. Nonetheless a top shot.

Not sure the witch head is in this image. I thought that was a bit more to the left. I have done FSQ images before of Orion where the red background comes out very strongly. That is a processing option for sure. Mine did not come out as strongly. Perhaps the choices I made when adding in the Ha (I am much more lightly lightly with Ha these days) or as I recall it didn't show up as much. Not sure why. But I also wanted to balance the colours in the overall image better than I have in previous Ha blends. My new perspective on Ha is to not let it dominate the image like it can so very easily. I want the details and edge it can bring without it overwhelming. Like too much spice in a food dish.

Greg.

[h0ughy (David)]

very impressive

[Peter Ward]

3.4 billion pixels it 'aint ( 16 panes with a 16803 is 256 mega pixels...so you'd need well over 160 panes for 2.56 billion )

But, what an impressive result! Well done.

[spearo (Frank)]

excellent stuff
well done
frank

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

very impressive

Thanks Dave.

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

3.4 billion pixels it 'aint ( 16 panes with a 16803 is 256 mega pixels...so you'd need well over 160 panes for 2.56 billion )

But, what an impressive result! Well done.

Thanks Peter. You're right. This image is over 160 panes. M78, M42 and HH are all separate images blended in.
I did a tally up. A pane is 16.77mp (4096 x 4096 pixels).

Panel 1 is 838.5mp (26 panes of the main image and 24 panes for M78 from my TEC180) 50 x 16.77 = 838.5mp
Panel 2 is 39 panes for the base image, 82 panes for M42 and 33 panes for the Horsehead = 154x 16.77 = 2582.58mp
Panel 3 is 25 panes 25 x 16.77 = 419.25mp
Panel 4 is 26 panes 26 x 16.77 = 469.56mp

Grand Total is 4309.89mp

So that's 4.3 billion megapixels.

Some of our images are larger than what we think.

Greg.

QUOTE=spearo;709251]excellent stuff
well done
frank[/QUOTE]

Thanks Frank.

Greg.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

The strongest thing about this image is that it is a unique view, I haven't seen this composition before. Barnards Loop is the showcase and sets the scene.

I certainly don't underestimate the trials and tribulations of composing a mozaic (I have not attempted one yet) but for such a mamoth effort with such great gear I guess if I am honest I am left with the feeling that it could have just a little more polish , so I agree with the suggestions made so far... but heck!!! all things considered it still has major impact and does make the viewer go wow! so well done, I really enjoyed the view .

Great effort Greg

11 clear nights..ASNSW guys got back from Conna last week after 7 clear nights in a row too...sigh..stuff straight from heaven

Mike

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

Well that's incredibly impressive Greg - well done!

Steve

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Grand Total is 4309.89mp

So that's 4.3 billion megapixels.

Wow! I was looking at the FOV and was thinking no-way that the amount of sky was equal to say a 40x 40 matrix of a FSQ/16803 field, but... I stand corrected! (4.3 billion pixels.... 4.3 billion megapixels would truly be a world first

From a data gathering point of view, that is indeed massive!!

Again, well done.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Absolutely Stunning Greg. Very deep, and I like the appropriate processing for each object to bring each right out.

[renormalised (Carl)]

What would be magnificent, but would take a month of Sundays to produce, would be a "grand panorama" of the entire sky done like this. Just imagine the size of the final piccie!!!!. But what a piccie it would be

[alexch (Alex)]

Truly amazing image, Greg! Thanks for the view.
Alex

[hickny (Peter)]

Wow!

[Hagar (Doug)]

Now that is what I call a huge project to tackle Greg. The end result is beautiful. The detail even when reduced to fit the screen on this IPad is outstanding. I will be able to use this as a street map of Orion when next it pops up high in the sky.
Thanks. For sharing this with us.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

The strongest thing about this image is that it is a unique view, I haven't seen this composition before. Barnards Loop is the showcase and sets the scene.

I certainly don't underestimate the trials and tribulations of composing a mozaic (I have not attempted one yet) but for such a mamoth effort with such great gear I guess if I am honest I am left with the feeling that it could have just a little more polish , so I agree with the suggestions made so far... but heck!!! all things considered it still has major impact and does make the viewer go wow! so well done, I really enjoyed the view .

Great effort Greg

11 clear nights..ASNSW guys got back from Conna last week after 7 clear nights in a row too...sigh..stuff straight from heaven

Mike

Thanks Mike. I already adjusted the image after those comments so I assume you are referring to the current image. It no doubt could be improved upon as can any image. But after all the fiddling I think I ended up with a decent result. Often mosaics are dark to hide the little defects much like a rock guitarist turns up the fuzz on the guitar to hide the flubs. Jase's mosaic of Rho had a very light background so he was very good there with his technique.

I have the data for an even larger mosaic I took over a year ago now. It is 16 panels of about 6 hours each. Now I have this as a method I should start the long process of putting it together.

Originally Posted by Stevec35

Well that's incredibly impressive Greg - well done!

Steve

Thanks Steve. It was a big undertaking and I am pleased I got an image out of it. I wasn't so sure I would at one point!

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Wow! I was looking at the FOV and was thinking no-way that the amount of sky was equal to say a 40x 40 matrix of a FSQ/16803 field, but... I stand corrected! (4.3 billion pixels.... 4.3 billion megapixels would truly be a world first

From a data gathering point of view, that is indeed massive!!

Again, well done.

Thanks Peter. Yes it does represent a large collection of data over a longish period of time. It helps using the 16803 chip as each image is so very large.

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Absolutely Stunning Greg. Very deep, and I like the appropriate processing for each object to bring each right out.

Originally Posted by renormalised

What would be magnificent, but would take a month of Sundays to produce, would be a "grand panorama" of the entire sky done like this. Just imagine the size of the final piccie!!!!. But what a piccie it would be

Yes a full sky image would be something. I am sure one day it will be routine and done with a mass produced Canon camera!

Originally Posted by alexch

Truly amazing image, Greg! Thanks for the view.
Alex

Thanks Alex. Glad I can post something to impress you after your wonderful images lately. Just imagine, you could collect a huge resolution swathe of sky with your SDM 22 inch very quickly. You'd have to keep good admin to know which panel belonged where though.

Originally Posted by hickny

Wow!

Cheers.

Originally Posted by Hagar

Now that is what I call a huge project to tackle Greg. The end result is beautiful. The detail even when reduced to fit the screen on this IPad is outstanding. I will be able to use this as a street map of Orion when next it pops up high in the sky.
Thanks. For sharing this with us.

Thanks Doug. I intend to add to it next year so it will take in even more.

[marki]

Greg what a wonderful image, well worth your time and effort.

Mark

[Octane (Humayun)]

Greg,

The re-upload is so much better! The colours are a lot more natural without hydrogen alpha dominating the scene.

I agree with a lot of other people, the feel of the bottom left hand corner is awesome. It looks 3D and I feel like reaching in and touching it. To me, that is always the hallmark of a great image.

If I feel like reaching in and touching it on screen, I can only imagine how incredible a large format print of this would look. Wow!

This gets my vote for Image of the Week. I'm sure it'll catch Mike's eye, too. : )

H

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Just Beautiful ....