M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

U42 camera on sale for US $38,500 only..this is where remote imaging comes into its own..who could justify spending so much on just a camera-especialy given the three nights a year that it seems to be clear

[jase (Jason)]

...and add another US$15k for a Grade 0 back illuminated chip with no defects. Seriously though, you're right...this is where rental scopes come into their own league. Even if I came into serious money to buy my own 24" RC, I wouldn't do it...Why? I simply don't have the environmental conditions to fully utilise such equipment. It would be a waste of time and money. Sure, if you've got a block of land up high up in the blue mountains where seeing is great, go for it. When you crunch the figures, its more economical to buy time on high end gear than purchase it yourself (especially when considering weather etc). Depends on how keen you are...

[Bassnut (Fred)]

$38,500?, cheap rubbish, spend $200,000 and then it gets interesting (and thats for a regular retail buy now astrocam), cant find the link, ill look more. BTW It has a cloud filter .

[jase (Jason)]

Jealousy will get you nowhere Fred. I know you want one for your rental rig. The 200k chip you are referring to is probably the Fairchild imaging chip...Its an 85mp monster - http://www.fairchildimaging.com/prod...ea/ccd_595.htm
I could count on one hand the type of scopes suitable for such a large chip, I'm afraid your 10" RC isn't one of them. Though the FSQ with its 88mm image circle would handle it well.

[RB (Andrew)]

How stunning is that !!!!
Reminds me of an opal gemstone.

Superb work Jase, I love both versions.
I signed up to Lightbuckets too when you first mentioned it in another thread.
Hopefully I'll get around to trying it out at some stage.
I think it's a great idea and well worth giving it a go.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Thats the one. Jase, itll fit my new comming_soon 32' RC no sweat (if it works on a G11).

[Dietmar]

incredible image, Jase!
wonderful!
I like the true colors most!

[richardo (Rich)]

Hi Jase,
glad I caught this one.... aaahhh, two

I like them both.
Pin point stars all around, good teal colour to the standard and good use of the Ha data to accentuated the details within and to the outer shell.
Very nicely incorporated.

I do like mapped colour if only for something completely different.
My favourite palette combo is Ha=R: SII=G: OIII=B..
But then again it depends on what ones eye finds appealing.

Good stuff!!

Rich

[renormalised (Carl)]

Nope..damn the money. If I ever win enough in the Lotto, it'll be a 40" OGS RC setup with that Fairchild chip in a top of the line CCD rig. Or maybe a similar sized RCOS rig running at f/5 with the same CCD camera.

Although, I'd settle for an Apogee

And you can all use it, if you ask nicely

And I have the time to lend you

[jase (Jason)]

Originally Posted by RB

How stunning is that !!!!
Reminds me of an opal gemstone.

Superb work Jase, I love both versions.
I signed up to Lightbuckets too when you first mentioned it in another thread.
Hopefully I'll get around to trying it out at some stage.
I think it's a great idea and well worth giving it a go.

Thanks Andrew. I think the true colour and mapped scream for more data. I've been looking that high res images of these over the past few day and have some ideas on pushing them further (improved colour saturation etc). I've also managed to collect close to 2 hours more of Ha data using 900s subs. This should bring out the faint ejecta without introducing noise (I hope). Indeed, you should give remote imaging a shot. I keep telling people that they can acquire high resolution luminance from these rental scopes and combine it with your own RGB data. Endless options when it comes to imaging. Thanks again.

Originally Posted by Dietmar

incredible image, Jase!
wonderful!
I like the true colors most!

Thanks Dietz. Pleased you like them. The true colour appears to be the favourite (or so my site statistics indicate). Needs luminance to counteract the tight stars in the Ha data. It can be improved that's for sure.

Originally Posted by richardo

Hi Jase,
glad I caught this one.... aaahhh, two

I like them both.
Pin point stars all around, good teal colour to the standard and good use of the Ha data to accentuated the details within and to the outer shell.
Very nicely incorporated.

I do like mapped colour if only for something completely different.
My favourite palette combo is Ha=R: SII=G: OIII=B..
But then again it depends on what ones eye finds appealing.

Good stuff!!

Rich

Cheers Rich. Yes pinpoint stars, but I would expect nothing else with this gear. The RCOS pro series mounts deliver the goods. Quoted from the lightbuckets site;

"We’ve elected to use Ray Gralak’s PEMPro software (www.ccdware.com) to train the PEC. At this point there does not appear to be much PE but for a complete install we need to check it out. The data are in arc-seconds. After 12 complete turns of the worm (1608 seconds of data), the data looks mostly like noise to me, very little PE. We know that all worm gear systems have to have periodic error so using PEMPro here is the bottom line on raw periodic error for the RCOS Pro Series Fork Mount: Peak to peak PE of 2.6 arc-seconds or RMS 0.781 arc-seconds. This is the kind of raw PE we would expect on a very much larger telescope - like the Keck!!!
After training of the PEC in the Bisque TCS-4000 controller, the PE truly is in the noise. I have never seen a mount so free of periodic error. The figures from PEMPro analysis are peak to peak PE of 0.79 arc-seconds, RMS 0.22 arc-seconds of PE. The proof is in the imaging."
http://www.lightbuckets.com/newsarti...retien-review/
Quality with a capital Q.

Yes, I've considered a HSO palette, may try it on this target. Will be interesting as the OIII is remarkably strong. Thanks again for you comments.

Originally Posted by renormalised

Nope..damn the money. If I ever win enough in the Lotto, it'll be a 40" OGS RC setup with that Fairchild chip in a top of the line CCD rig. Or maybe a similar sized RCOS rig running at f/5 with the same CCD camera.

Well someone has bought a whopping big scope as the cloud gods are in disagreement. Its been cloudy/storms in Rodeo and Mayhill in NM (US) and also Pingelly in WA (AU) that last few nights. So I haven't been able to set up a session of either the 24", 20" or 14.5" RC's. Hope it clears so I can complete the mission (or start another).

=====
Thanks again for all your comments.

[jase (Jason)]

I don't particularly like rekindling old threads, but considering this is on-topic I'll provide an update.

I've recently reprocessed the HaRGB image of the Dumbbell Nebula utilising 267mins of Ha data (7x900s, 12x600s and 6x480s subs). This didn't do much to improve detail, but reduced noise. In addition, I worked double time on the RGB data in attempt to remove the halos introduced due to the upscaled data. I first combined the RGB data to make a synthetic lum and coupled this with the original RGB. Down scaled the Ha to match the LRGB, then upscaled the new "super" RGB (technically HALRGB) before using the data to colour the Ha. As the Ha data star were tight and small, I simply integrated them using lighten mode. Falling short of collecting RGB data on the 24" RCOS (which was planned but bad weather there has seen no imaging time) this will need to do for now(as I can still see room for improvement). I hope the halos are now to your satisfaction Clive. Happy to hear other constructive feedback.

You can see the "final" result clicking on the link below or on the original link posted;
HaRGB Dumbbell Nebula Revised

Focused on getting the HaRGB image in line. I was unable to revise the NB version of the image in time before I was approached - http://gallery.rcopticalsystems.com/...7mapcolor.html
This will have to suffice, however I do have a bi colour NB image (Ha:OIII) in the mix, but not completed - leaving that for cloud riddled nights... in which we appear to be having a lot of lately I should add.

Finally (off topic), for those that expressed interest to see an un-cropped (100% 1:1 scale) version of NGC6357 in my previous CWAS post - Here it is for your viewing pleasure. ...and for the record, purists who may have got a little upset by me vertically flipping and 180' rotating the wide field image for aesthetic reasons will now be pleased that I have restored equilibrium as shown here.

Cheers

[monoxide]

veeeery nice!
dont know how i missed this one...
it really seems to have a 3D look to it.
plenty of detail in there too, i've become a big fan of these long focal length PN images.

[renormalised (Carl)]

That is nice, Jase. A great piccie, with lots of detail in M27's outer shell

Excellent

[RB (Andrew)]

Fantastic work Jase, I just love viewing the large versions.
It feels like I'm floating out in space and can just reach out and touch the nebulosity.

Thanks for sharing mate.

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow that's quite stunning. Excellent imaging.

[sjastro]

A 24" RC!!

An excellent image Jase.
A convincing argument for remote imaging.

Regards

Steven

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Wow Jase excellent, (well, it would be), nice getting on the RCOS site, top work, (umm, does that mean yr famous now, can we still talk to you?)

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Jase

Ok...<snip>...bah!

This Dumbell image is really great and I enjoyed it, thanks....
See you in Parks for that beer ...or two, or three.......le ts see if we can get David pissed

Mike