Taken during Qld Astrofest last month, this is a 2 frame mosaic of Scorpius taken with the 450D and a "nifty 50" lens at F/5.0. Each frame was 1hr of 10min subs taken at ISO 400.
It's taken me some time to get around to doing matching 10min darks (my wife got quite a surprise to find the Canon clicking away in the fridge one night recently around midnight )
This is probably my fav constellation dating back to first recognition of the brighter stars a long time ago, so pleased with this one. Thanks for looking.
Last edited by RobF; 28-08-2011 at 10:05 PM.
Reason: Removed reference to full size TIFF - couldn't upload
That is masterfully framed -- I really, really like this.
However, you might want to take care of that magenta cast.
H
Thanks re framing Humayun - I'll take that praise any day from the compositional master
Magenta cast hey - I should know by now not to be processing during daylight, not to mention uploading monster files without some re-assurance from the friendly IIS critics
Ah well - Sidonio time!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjjnettie
Fantastic Rob It's a beaut little lens isn't it.
Thanks Jeanette - and for all your help with nic nacs to keep me going on the night. The bottom right corner of this lens is a bit prone to coma effects but the way the frames come together here I was able to crop it out of conceal it in the overlap. Agreed, pretty hard to beat for about $100 !
Glad you liked Mark - I think we left a bit early to see you this year
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjjnettie
My lens is prone to coma on the top left side, so I frame to suit. Shooting at F4.5-F5 make a real difference.
Yes, and I wouldn't have stopped down this far or gone to 10min subs without your help either JJJ - thanks for the advice
I'm still to work on the other 5mins Miky Way shots taken earlier in the week as expecting more than the usual mosaic pain, but will be interesting to see how the stars are affected/tightened. Always stuff to learn when you try something different isn't there....
Quote:
Originally Posted by astroron
Very Nice Rob thanks for posting
Cheers
Thanks Ron - welcome back! Sounds like a great trip you had
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Originally Posted by Tandum
That's a beauty Rob, a real keeper. Some things must happen for a reason, if your cooled camera had been working, you might not have got this one.
Yeah, I was down in the dumps a bit Robin at the time, but I've never got around to trying decent widefield until recently. Hopefully Theo has her working now - get to find out later this week. I'm just glad I took the 450 and some dew control too. Thanks to Tony and JJJ for helping with spare batteries and power too....
Quote:
Originally Posted by troypiggo
Stunning. Love it.
Thanks Troy
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozstronomer
Rob
That's a beautiful shot, well done
As Robin said there was a reason you didn't have the QHY. You must get the "Nifty Fifty" out more often
Yes, I hadn't planned to do more than an hr or two of widefield originally Geoff. Thank goodness I took a hard look at my early data though. It would have been a shock to get home with a week of dodgey data.
I've also got a lot of additional newly found respect for JJJ, Marc, Bert and other widefield masters that make it all look so damned easy too..
That's a really beautiful image. I love these widefields.
You chose an excellent (and slightly unusual) framing which picks up Rho, the Blue Horsehead and of course the centre of our galaxy. Wonderful colours and depth.
I have some Pentax 67 lenses all ready to go to do this type of imaging. Perhaps next weekend if the weather gods are smiling.
Greg, I often wish I could have a 2nd rig running once long exposures are under way. I'm sure you'll have a ton of fun with your Pentax lens once you get it under way.
Werner, I tried to depict the scorpion the way we see it ("down under"!) rising in Autumn and Winter, hanging low to the Eastern horizon. It really is a striking and beautiful sight isn't it
I've had another go at pulling back the red/magenta noise and hue as H suggested. Perhaps not tamed, but at least subdued a little.
Wow that's spectacular! I really like how you've managed to not let the background stars and Milky Way drown out the brighter stars of Scorpius, while still showing all that detail. The asterism is very visible and it looks great, beautiful colours too.
Really nice idea to frame the constellation like that Rob, looks great.
Overall I think the colour is about right
Mike
Thanks Mike - I spent quite a bit of time with the binocs finding objects I had never seen that way (NGC 253, Helix, Nth American Neb, etc) and found my hand at arm's length gave a rough representation of the 50mm FOV. After scanning around the sky like some crazy art director one night the idea for a 2 panel mosaic taking in Scorpio came together. Then again, it might have been all the Mango schnapps Martin brought along
Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS
Very impressive, Rob!
Thanks Rick
Quote:
Originally Posted by SkyViking
Wow that's spectacular! I really like how you've managed to not let the background stars and Milky Way drown out the brighter stars of Scorpius, while still showing all that detail. The asterism is very visible and it looks great, beautiful colours too.
Thanks Rolf. PI processing takes a lot longer for DSLR images (in my hands) but the results blow anything I can do with Deepskystacker for six. Just seems to stack so much cleaner and tighter giving more processing options. There's a touch of morphological transform in there to subdue just the smallest stars otherwsie it all gets a bit overwhelming as you say in this region.
Here's a hastily (and poorly) stretched comparison of the master frames from both programs for interest from another milky way field near a glob cluster:
Missed that one. Very clever framing. The color shift and star density is really dramatic from left to right. Loads going on there. The only clear point of reference is the constellation as a whole. That's what makes the shot's framing work. I like it a lot.
)
- I should know by now not to be processing during daylight, not to mention uploading monster files without some re-assurance from the friendly IIS critics 
