Antares and companion split asunder!

[Dennis]

Hello,

During one of my recent imaging sessions in testing out the ASI120MM CCD camera, the seeing was very good so I took an AVI of Antares and could easily see the fainter companion on screen once I had adjusted the camera settings.

It wasn’t until I banged the AVI through AutoStakkert and Registax (Wavelets) that I noticed the diffraction rings. After a bit of stretching and Layer Masking in CS6, I was able to tease out the “hidden” data in the image. The image has been up-sampled to better display the separation between the rings.

Antares in Scorpius, Multiple Star System
Magnitude: 1.02
AB: 0.91+5.4 mag, Sep 2.08"

Cheers

Dennis

Equipment details:
Tak Mewlon 180 F12 with Tak x1.6 Extender giving an efl of 3456mm at F19.2

Capture details:
[ASI120MM Camera (ZWO Design)]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=1280x960
Frame Rate (fps)=Maximum
Colour Space / Compression=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Exposure (s)=0.010594
Brightness=0
Gamma=50
Gain=10

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very cool Dennis. Another successful split.

[RickS (Rick)]

Very cool, Dennis!

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Excellent!

[RB (Andrew)]

I choked on my coffee.
You owe me a new ipad mini Dennis !

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Awesome result Dennis! It is such a great pair, also visually

[allan gould]

Great catch Dennis - you certainly are showing what that camera can do in the hands of an expert and it's good to see something out of the usual.
Allan

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Nailed well and truly. Fab work Dennis.

[Osirisra (Ken)]

Epically awesome capture!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Well done Dennis, that's a big gap for just 2"

Mike

[jase (Jason)]

Masterful work Dennis. Chasing such obscurities takes patience and dedication. Tip of the hat to you sir. Thanks for sharing.

[Greg Bock (Greg Bock)]

Hey Dennis,
great job, and really good to see something different.
I eyed this pair visually once years ago at Leyburn and almost fell off my chair onto the frosty grass when i saw it.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Very cool Dennis. Another successful split.

Thanks Marc!

Originally Posted by RickS

Very cool, Dennis!

Thank you Rick!

Originally Posted by Larryp

Excellent!

Thanks Laurie!

Originally Posted by RB

I choked on my coffee.
You owe me a new ipad mini Dennis !

Thanks RB and whoops, sorry for the coffee spray – hope the iPad mini scrubs up like new!

Originally Posted by SkyViking

Awesome result Dennis! It is such a great pair, also visually

Thanks Rolf!

Originally Posted by allan gould

Great catch Dennis - you certainly are showing what that camera can do in the hands of an expert and it's good to see something out of the usual.
Allan

Thank you Allan, for all your work, advice and examples with this camera – it made the purchasing decision that much easier!

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Nailed well and truly. Fab work Dennis.

Thank you Jeanette!

Originally Posted by Osirisra

Epically awesome capture!

Thanks Ken!

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Well done Dennis, that's a big gap for just 2"
Mike

Thanks Mike – I once images a double star at 1.7” separation so it’s not my best effort!

Originally Posted by jase

Masterful work Dennis. Chasing such obscurities takes patience and dedication. Tip of the hat to you sir. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you Jase, nice to hear from you and hope you are well.

Originally Posted by Greg Bock

Hey Dennis,
great job, and really good to see something different.
I eyed this pair visually once years ago at Leyburn and almost fell off my chair onto the frosty grass when i saw it.

Thanks Greg! Are you sure that wasn’t the Chardonnay?

Cheers

Dennis

[John Hothersall]

Love this proper imaging with a challenging object, just showing of your collimation skills with the rings and it somehow adds to the result. Very close separation indeed.

John.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by John Hothersall

Love this proper imaging with a challenging object, just showing of your collimation skills with the rings and it somehow adds to the result. Very close separation indeed.

John.

Thanks John.

Although the typical Forum reader will already know this due to the resolved stellar points, this is the in-focus image and not a defocused “either side of focus” image used at the start of a typical collimation session. I focused using a Bahtinov Mask.

Cheers

Dennis

[Ross G]

Amazing capture Dennis.

Ross.

[Ric]

That's a nice capture Dennis

Well done.

[asimov (John)]

Good stuff Dennis. This used to be one of my favourite things to do at one stage. Must try it again soon.