MarsG76

Hello All,

I was wondering whether it's possible to image a DSO and capture any depth. Every 3D astro image online is faked so at the start of the year, I decided to image M42 six months apart.

Back in March I posted a image of M42 imaged at f10, 2032mm FL through my 8SE on 28th February 2019. Than on 3rd September (setup and captured 15 second subs on 1 September) I captured M42 at the same focal length, same orientation and very similar subs for a total exposure of 1 hr 24 minutes. This was almost to the day exactly 6 months between the two images, so the earth was 300 million km away from the original position on the other side of the sun, furthest I could hope for imaging a 3D stereo pair.

First attached is the image from September...

I color matched the above image with the image from February, aligned them and below is the end result....

As you can see there is no detectable 3D effect... There was a 3Dish effect but this was most likely due to the differences in processing of the two stacks and when I SCALE and rotate the two images to align them, and hence no 3D effect.

Of course the stars and nebula are certainly not on a flat plain so I believe that the reason for the lack of any discernable depth is simply due to the distance of M42 resulting in  a very small angular shift in the stars, so small in fact, that it’s beyond the sensitivity of my 8” SCT, camera pixel resolution and tracking accuracy of the CGEM.

Calculation of the expected motion of any parallax shift when the Orion Nebula is 1344 lightyears away and the distance of Earth being 149,600,000km from the Sun:

1344LY = 1.2715e+16km

Θ° = Tan-1(149.6e+6/1.2715e+16)

Parallax Shift Θ” = 2 x 3600 x Θ

Parallax Shift Θ” = 0.0048536712567150

An angular motion of 0.005” was not picked up by my system that tracks with an average accuracy of about 1” RMS, with a camera sensor that has a resolution of 1.16”/pixel at 2032mm focal length with a 8” SCT. Even if I could get consistent tracking at the best accuracy that I have ever seen with my gear, 0.38” RMS, this is still well above 0.005” and well beyond the 40D sensor pixel resolution, and all this is without considering atmospheric distortion, obviously my setup is not even close to sensitive enough.

This was a good project but unfortunately the distances of objects in the universe are too great, even objects classed as in our celestial “backyard”. If I didn’t try this experiment than I would be always wondering and curiosity would most likely make me try it eventually.

Clear Skies,

MG

How good does that look... so much matter and detail... very nice.

Very nice result... this looks ghostly or delicate like a withering cobweb....

17 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Sometimes it seems that Councillors use a different form of logic to the rest of us and don’t care about saving money. 🙄

BTW renewable energy has now overtaken fossil fuels as a source of energy in the UK.

Really?.. surely not solar?? Wind farms perhaps....

Obviously they don't care about the environment, burning more fossil fuels to keep the lights on.

This monthly subscription greed is why the vast majority of PS users stick to CS2, 3, 4, or 5... After all they all do the job, and do it very well.. they're fast and smooth to use... At work they "upgraded" to the cloud based monthly subscription versions and they're slow and laggy... not comfortable to use any more.. and that's what we're meant to pay a for forever???.. People always find a way not to be stung by a endless monthly payment for something you never will own.... and the new versions do not have any useful features that are missed in the older versions that we can own outright.

What a cool little planetary... with a spiral galaxy too boot....

7 minutes ago, Stu said:

Not much. 3.7 or 3.8 arc seconds vs 3.4 at superior conjunction. Roughly 10%, noticeable if you could compare them side by side but not that obvious otherwise I suspect.

Yeah.. still love seeing that tiny aqua disc in the eyepiece.... 

Awesome result... 32 hours of subs from 37.5 hours worth of subs in two nights??? you must have some long nights....

I find too find that exposing for around the 30 hours mark makes the smoothest images for both nebulae and galaxies.

Is there actually much difference in its size when it's at opposition or not when the sun isn't obscuring it?? I'd imagine that the sheer distance of it from the sun makes minimal difference with Uranus or Neptune during the year observable times.

Fantastic Pleiades.... love it.

Welcome to SGL.... 

To echo other above, Cone error doesn't matter, and perfect polar alignment is not crucial either... close with autoguiding is good enough.... you will waste a lot of imaging and observing time trying to get things perfect and perfect is IMPOSSIBLE.. there will always be discrepancies.... hence the need for some kind of guiding in all long exposure astrophotography. 

Yup, you definitely ruined observing from home for yourself....  you'll always yearn to be under such dark skies again.... astro imaging will sort of almost satisfy that yearning... sort of...

Very nice Ivo, one for the splash of APT4.0??

Welcome to SGL.... that is more than a great start into astrophotography. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Good Work, this reminds me of how my Helix turned out before I used narrowband on it... I find that capturing Halpha and OIII data brings out a lot more of the outer faint matter that seems to be elusive from light polluted skies.

Fantastic looking image.

Nice work.. this reminds me of the time I did my first and last quarter moon mosaics... lot of fun.

I recommend the C8 on a CGEM or equivalent mount and you won't regret it.

Very nice image... 

How unfortunate.. I always saw Baader ad premium filters... personally I haven't experienced this with my Baaders... but I don't use a camera chilled to well below freezing.

Welcome to SGL...

Thats pretty cool, makes the nebulae look a bit weird but cool.... 

So Android won this Android vs iOS war?