This is truely ground breaking showing that the returns in exposure time really do pay off - and the limits may be farther than one thnks. Congrats on not only a great effort - but great result!
Congratulations on this magnificent result Rolf. Your repeated pushing of the boundaries of what's possible (or thought was possible, only to show us otherwise) should be an inspiration to us all. I can wholeheartedly tell you that it is for me. Well done.
On those night when I try to work out if I should have 10 or 15 or 20 images to stack ... I might have to increase that number now!!
Well done!!!!!!!!!!
Congratutalion Rolf for the commitment put to obtain this record breaking image! I am used to very long exposures, however I doubt I will ever collect so much light on a single object, perhaps now that you cast the challenge I could think about it
This is APOD worthy! I am floored by so many things in this image. The image itself is breathtaking, the fact that this is imaged through a scope Rolf built himself and that it rides on a G11! Well done all around. Move over Gendler !
Thanks again to each and everyone for your engouraging comments!
Now I have to figure out where to point the scope next, but so far it's been cloudy here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
This image should spark a thread about signal to noise ratio and how much gain extra exposure time will provide.
As I understand it the signal to noise ratio improves to the square root of the increased exposure time. So it must take a LOT more hours to get that last little bit.
Did you find that Rolf with this image? Or did you wait until you had the full 120 hours to process it. I wonder what it looked like at say 40 hours for example.
Greg.
Yes Greg absolutely, I did a couple of stacks along the way so I could see the difference. From the last 50-60 hours I gained about 1 magnitude, from ~24.5 to ~25.5
But this also markedly descreased the background noise and made processing far easier. I couldn't have brought out the excruciatingly faint outer details to this degree with say half the integration time, so it was worth it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrB
Was just looking at the images again and to my untrained eye, there looks to have been some changes out there?
Thanks for spotting this, I think I know what happened. In the ESO field there is a very very faint star right at the tip of the bend in that filament, which seems to have been poorly handled during my processing so it now looks sort of like an extension of the filament...I hope to get around to fixing that soon
Just adding mine to the long list of positive comments - this is a truly staggering image, really pushing what (very few) amateurs can do these days, and totally unthinkable a decade or two ago. I'm very very impressed. Wow!
outstanding work with your imaging, Rolf, very well done
looking forward to more gems from you
Dave
Thank you Dave, glad you enjoyed it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyV
Wow well done Rolfe - it's beautiful - and instructive, it's a study to show us how far we've got to go!
Thanks for the link in the IceInSpace news folks, I would have missed it otherwise.
Thanks Danny, I do try to write up some detailed info on each subject that I image, naturally this one deseved a bit of extra details. I'm glad you found it useful
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidU
I can only imagine what you could do with that
Thank you David, Mr. Royce just last week notified me that he has started grinding my mirror, so hopefully it's not too far off now
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
Excellent work Rolf....
Have you any pearls to share with other G-11 owners?? Have you made any mods/adjustments to the mount?
Thank you Lee Actually I have no tips whatsoever because my mount is unmodded (and probably even a bit neglected ). I re-greased it a while back but I think it's time to do it again, just haven't gotten around to it yet... If I was to improve it I would invest in a set of upgraded worms - I think that's the only issue I have with it. My tracking definitely shows larger movement in RA than in Dec so it's not ideal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andyc
Just adding mine to the long list of positive comments - this is a truly staggering image, really pushing what (very few) amateurs can do these days, and totally unthinkable a decade or two ago. I'm very very impressed. Wow!
There are insufficient superlatives to describe what you have done. Magnificent.
I hope to get around to fixing that soon 
