Awesome work Paul. An amazing effort - 43 hours on a widefield. That's very exciting. Also its proof that excellent optics in a small package can still deliver the goods. I love small refractors myself.
I am joining this thread late on and I can see you've already implemented a few changes so the latest image to my eyes looks sensational.
One thing about gradients. When I am at my dark site which is also totally dark and good seeing I sometimes still get a minor gradient. This used to puzzle me until I started doing some DSLR nightscapes and I saw how often there is sky glow. Sky Glow is usually green but as the latest image from Antu in the nightscapes beautifully shows it can sometimes be shades of red/magenta. So perhaps you caught a bit of that and also as you are fairly south perhaps even some Aurora one night. I am not sure high cloud would create a reddish area like that. If there had been high cloud the stars would have been fuzzy which is the first thing you would notice.
Of interest to me is the elliptical galaxy in the bottom right. Is it just me or is there a hint of a tidal stream there going down to the bottom right corner? I'd love to see a nice inverted image to see that more clearly.
You are obviously doing the most you can to do the best of imaging and the hard work is showing in results here.
Greg.
Yeah the gradient is a puzzle given I shoot mostly in the east and there is no light source for 700 or so kilometres.
As requested here is a link to an inverted image. Hope that suits. I don't think there is a stream though.
For the size this refractor does all right but the seeing at Clayton makes the refractor really perform. Guide parameters in the last month of so have been around 0.1 at worst and 0.01 at best.
Yeah the gradient is a puzzle given I shoot mostly in the east and there is no light source for 700 or so kilometres.
As requested here is a link to an inverted image. Hope that suits. I don't think there is a stream though.
For the size this refractor does all right but the seeing at Clayton makes the refractor really perform. Guide parameters in the last month of so have been around 0.1 at worst and 0.01 at best.
Not sure what your agenda is here. You rave about a certain imager's images and those look like noise central, have elongated stars everywhere and not well colour balanced, and you don't bang him with a sledge hammer.
To whom are you referring here Paul, Rob Gendler? Martin Pugh, Don Goldman..?
Your debates about imaging are remarkably technical, and they impress a humble galaxy morphologist like me.
Your discussion level reminds me of group of professional astronomers having a disagreement.
Certainly, all of you have taken amateur imaging to levels which were inconceivable even a decade ago.
I am in awe of the achievement of the amateur imagers in IIS!!
When people get really knowledgable, essentially professional, about a topic, they tend to nitpick, and arrogance is not far away. After all, if you are really good at something, a certain amount of arrogance is natural.
My advice, regarding this much too heated discussion, is that really it is all about having fun....
And there is the important issue, which has nothing to do with emotion, of how to bring out the extremely extremely faint details in images.
cheers,
Robert
Thanks guys, I really appreciate you taking the time to comment.
Mike, non of the above but you know now who I mean.
Robert, yes I think you are correct. In then end though forums and discussions tend to increase the level of perfection and the standard of imaging. I am certain that the internet has raised the imaging level by mega levels to what it might have been had it not existed. The dissemination of information has had a crucial impact on imaging in general. Not to mention other areas in astronomy. So I for one don't mind constructive criticism but I do like to hear what people like about my images too.
The next image will be along in about 30 hours time. It is closer to home though.
Hi Paul. I've been swamped with work of late and only nowjust caught up with this. Great image! All those background galaxies make me think of the Hubble Deep Field (the 4" equivalent). My favourite is the tiny spiral near the blue star, top centre.
Hi Paul. I've been swamped with work of late and only nowjust caught up with this. Great image! All those background galaxies make me think of the Hubble Deep Field (the 4" equivalent). My favourite is the tiny spiral near the blue star, top centre.
Thanks Graeme, Yeah I suppose it is the 4" equivalent. That galaxy is pretty cool looking. Though I am pretty interested in the slightly edge on near the top center too.
