19 replies to this topic

[matt_astro_tx]

I present a whopping 2.4 hours of the Lagoon Nebula shot very low on the horizon through the adjoining neighborhood's light pollution and haze of Saharan dust.  Really sub-optimal conditions, plus I shoot OSC broadband with only a UV/IR cut filter, so the throttle was wide open on this one.  I hadn't planned on shooting this target tonight and only lined up on it as a filler while waiting for the Helix to rise.  I didn't even bother to center it in the frame because I didn't think this would be a keeper!  But in the end the image turned out decent and I like the off-center framing, so figured I'd post it.

 

Equipment

Astro Tech AT60ED Reduced to f/4.8 (287mm)

Baader UV/IR Cut Filter

ASI183MC Pro

ZWO 5v EAF

SV165 30mm Guidescope

ASI120MM Mini

Star Adventurer 2i

ASIAir Pro

 

Exposure

Lights 72 x 120" (2.4 hours)

60 Darks, Flats, & Bias

 

Processing

Processed in Siril & GraXpert on a Mac.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Click here for a larger version.

 

[Stellar1]

That’s some nice work! beautiful image.

[danny1976]

Turned out great and this without any narrowband filter. Nice stars also.

[BQ Octantis]

Bewdy!

 

Did you know that literally all of the gems of the Great Rift are in the Carina Arm?

 

BQ

[PIEJr]

Well, you showed me yours, so I'll show you mine. 

A long time ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far away.....

With an Atik Infinity, Non-Cooled camera. It was actually a very cool camera to use. It live stacked the images, so you watched it build the image on your display.

And yes, it is 13,000 seconds of imaging.

 

https://www.cloudyni...-13000-seconds/

 

Orion ED80T CF

Atik Infinity OSC camera

AVX Mount

Edited by PIEJr, 07 August 2024 - 12:02 AM.

[matt_astro_tx]

Bewdy!

 

Did you know that literally all of the gems of the Great Rift are in the Carina Arm?

 

BQ

I do now!  That's amazing.

[Sheridan]

Nice shot!!!

[Zambiadarkskies]

Great shot Matt.  

[BQ Octantis]

I do now!  That's amazing.

You inspired me to have a closer look…at all the nebula of emotional significance along the plane of the Milky Way:

 

 

Technically, the gems are all in the Sagittarius Arm.

 

BQ

Edited by BQ Octantis, 07 August 2024 - 10:34 PM.

[mythx1]

Such good stuff, Matt! Love it!

[BQ Octantis]

Interesting read about the Great Rift…

 

https://en.wikipedia...ift_(astronomy)

 

It looks like it technically spans from the "Northern Coalsack" to "Centaurus". Now there's a big difference between α-Cen and λ-Cen—and the difference is whether to consider the Running Chicken Nebula as the western extent. And the Northern Coalsack Nebula is flanked by the North America-Pelican Nebula pair to the east and the Sadr Region to the west—the difference being whether to include the former pair as the eastern extent.

 

Most liberally, the sequence from east to west would be

 

• North America Nebula
• Pelican Nebula
• Sadr Region
• Eagle Nebula
• Swan Nebula
• Trifid Nebula
• Lagoon Nebula
• Lobster Nebula
• Cat's Paw Nebula
• Prawn Nebula
• Rim Nebula
• Running Chicken Nebula

 

BQ

Edited by BQ Octantis, 08 August 2024 - 04:05 PM.

[matt_astro_tx]

I shot the Triffid Nebula the other night and stitched the two into my first viable mosaic.

 

Larger Version

[Skysmacker]

Looks great!

 

nice work in that mosaic!

[matt_astro_tx]

Thanks y'all!

[ngatel]

 

I present a whopping 2.4 hours of the Lagoon Nebula shot very low on the horizon through the adjoining neighborhood's light pollution and haze of Saharan dust.  Really sub-optimal conditions, plus I shoot OSC broadband with only a UV/IR cut filter, so the throttle was wide open on this one.  I hadn't planned on shooting this target tonight and only lined up on it as a filler while waiting for the Helix to rise.  I didn't even bother to center it in the frame because I didn't think this would be a keeper!  But in the end the image turned out decent and I like the off-center framing, so figured I'd post it.

 

Equipment

Astro Tech AT60ED Reduced to f/4.8 (287mm)

Baader UV/IR Cut Filter

ASI183MC Pro

ZWO 5v EAF

SV165 30mm Guidescope

ASI120MM Mini

Star Adventurer 2i

ASIAir Pro

 

Exposure

Lights 72 x 120" (2.4 hours)

60 Darks, Flats, & Bias

 

Processing

Processed in Siril & GraXpert on a Mac.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Click here for a larger version.

 

 

 

I present a whopping 2.4 hours of the Lagoon Nebula shot very low on the horizon through the adjoining neighborhood's light pollution and haze of Saharan dust.  Really sub-optimal conditions, plus I shoot OSC broadband with only a UV/IR cut filter, so the throttle was wide open on this one.  I hadn't planned on shooting this target tonight and only lined up on it as a filler while waiting for the Helix to rise.  I didn't even bother to center it in the frame because I didn't think this would be a keeper!  But in the end the image turned out decent and I like the off-center framing, so figured I'd post it.

 

Equipment

Astro Tech AT60ED Reduced to f/4.8 (287mm)

Baader UV/IR Cut Filter

ASI183MC Pro

ZWO 5v EAF

SV165 30mm Guidescope

ASI120MM Mini

Star Adventurer 2i

ASIAir Pro

 

Exposure

Lights 72 x 120" (2.4 hours)

60 Darks, Flats, & Bias

 

Processing

Processed in Siril & GraXpert on a Mac.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Click here for a larger version.

 

In terrestial photography it is often suggested to place the subject off center. This causes the viewer to scan across the picture to the subject at hand. It is sometimes a good technique with astrophotography when the target is just a portion of the entire frame.

 

Most people in the world use languages that are read from left to right and we become conditioned to looking at things this way. You might want to rotate it 180° to see how it looks. Doing this will make the current lower clouds, which look like mountains, move to the top of the image. This might not look as good.

 

Of course you could flip the image horizontally, which some people might have a philosophical problem with ;-)

 

Playing with framing can be fun, especially if one spends time with a planetarium program like SkySafari, Stellarium, etc.

 

Disclosure: I'm no expert in any of this! 

[AdrianoMS]

Beautiful Lagoon Nebula image!

[matt_astro_tx]

In terrestial photography it is often suggested to place the subject off center. This causes the viewer to scan across the picture to the subject at hand. It is sometimes a good technique with astrophotography when the target is just a portion of the entire frame.

 

Most people in the world use languages that are read from left to right and we become conditioned to looking at things this way. You might want to rotate it 180° to see how it looks. Doing this will make the current lower clouds, which look like mountains, move to the top of the image. This might not look as good.

 

Of course you could flip the image horizontally, which some people might have a philosophical problem with ;-)

 

Playing with framing can be fun, especially if one spends time with a planetarium program like SkySafari, Stellarium, etc.

 

Disclosure: I'm no expert in any of this! 

Yeah I rotated and cropped and I like it a lot better like this!

 

[BQ Octantis]

Awesome mosaic, Matt!

 

BQ
 

[matt_astro_tx]

Thank you!  It's definitely my first success.  I manually registered the two images in Photoshop by making one 50% transparent and moving it until it aligned with the other.  Then I adjusted the white balance and curves until the seam disappeared as much as possible and the two appeared to blend together.

 

There's no "Mosaic's for Dummies" so like anything in this hobby I figure if the final image looks legit then it counts!

[BQ Octantis]

That works for long focal lengths because the perspective distortion diminishes with longer focal lengths.

 

With extreme wide angle, you need remapping to a cylindrical projection, a spherical projection, or a fisheye projection. For that you need panorama software. I've used the PanoramaTools library since ~1998 for hand-held terrestrial stitching—like this shot from the south rim last week:

 

https://www.cloudyni...pes/?p=13598665

 

Hugin uses PanoramaTools and is actively maintained. If it fails to find connecting points, it lets you pick a few pilot points from which it will find a better mapping. You can then change the projection type, orientation, and crop for each.

 

Ironically, Photoshop does a better job blending, so I feed the pre-warped intermediate images out of Hugin into Photoshop for alignment and seamless blending. And you've already seen my most extreme result (a full sky mosaic):

 

https://www.cloudyni...lanckian-color/

 

BQ