Mr_42tr0nomy

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Great image and great dedication! Dont think we'd get that much clear sky time in a whole year here in the UK!

 

I'd be interested to know though, if theres much difference to the end quality of a target between say, 40 hours of data versus your 113 hours.

Yes I know 113hrs is overkill haha but compared to other 40hr project I did, the snr was better in this image hands down. But I would see similar results yes 

1 hour ago, Brian Maurer said:

Did you shoot this from Ohio? I didn’t think they got 113 hours of clear skies in a year😁

 

its a fantastic image! What scope did you use?

 Nope! I’ve moved to pine Colorado about three years ago and the skies are much clearer here. I didn’t know that I didn’t include my equipment!

i used an 8rc and edge8hd and an asi1600 all on top of a cem60

8 minutes ago, carastro said:

Fabulous image, but how great to be able to get this number of hours on one target.  I think it would take me 2 years to get this much data in the UK.

Carole 

Thank you! Yes we were very fortunate.

we averaged about 16hrs of day per imaging night with our two rigs. With that anything is possible! Shooting at f/8 has its downsides 

Greetings!

This was a 113hr collaboration with my friend, Trey Henderson. We totaled 50hrs of HA data (25 ea.), he collected 25hrs of Sii data, and I collected 28hrs of OIII data as well as 10hrs of RGB data for the stars (not presented in this image). As far as this image goes, I will be doing another rendition to show really show off the SHO (sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen) palette. This is also an SHO pallet but I really wanted to try the gold and blue look without the green... so I SCNR’D the greens out. The two looks are very different but awesome in their own way.. Anyway, I digress...
————
This nebula is the most detailed area of what’s better known as the Soul Nebula. I believe it lies nearly 6,500 light years away and is right underneath Cassiopeia. The one structure coming from the Ha and surprising the Sii channel give this nebula such a 3D feel. The spires on the right side of the nebula are nearly transparent! It’s so wild looking to me!
The orange colors here are ionized hydrogen and sulfur atoms. These atoms are being excited by the solar winds of the surround massive stars. The beautiful blue hues are ionized oxygen atoms.
————
This collaboration was a TON of work. Long nights of problem solving and trouble shooting connection problems, internal mount issues, data transferring issues (my fault bcs I don’t pay attention, lol), dew issues, scheduling issues, moon/running out of time issues... we barreled through nonetheless! I hope you guys enjoy!

Equipment:

at8rc/Edge8HD, asi1600, Cem60, Astrodon HA/Oiii/Sii 3nm. 

Clearest Skies!
Teagan

Greetings!

So, I've been sitting on this data for a long time. I didnt like the first rendition and I got discouraged and I moved onto another project lol. The stars in my Oiii data were pretty bloated and gave me some major ringing. I grew a pair and went at it again tonight and Im quite happy with it! I think I fixed the ringing for the most part.. It definitely took awhile! But anyway, this image consists of 34 hours of data (17hrs Ha / 17hrs Oiii). Hope you all enjoy!

Equipment:
AT8rc
ASI1600mm
CEM60
Astrodon 3nm Ha/Oiii
qhy5L-ii Guice Cam

Clear skies!
Teagan

I desaturate my stars in my Ha Oiii image and I over saturated my RGB image and I just layer then in photoshop using “lighten”. I then create a star mask in Pixinisght and saturate the color of the stars until I like them! 

20 minutes ago, JamesF said:

It is outstanding.  If there's one criticism I have it's that there's so much detail there, it's stopped looking like an iris.  Which is hardly a criticism after all

James

Hahah you know I thought the same! I’m like this doesn’t look much like an Iris anymore.. but at the same time there IS that detail in there. Maybe other people fail to pull it out? Maybe I over HDR’d it. Maybe an in between? Thanks

49 minutes ago, Brian Maurer said:

Very nice, but it looks like you have a lot more in there that you could pull out.

I thought the same. I think by lightening the image or increasing the mid tones would bring it out but after several tries to get a decent balance I decided that the less stretched version looked better. But now I’m re thinking this.. 

Greetings!

I am here posting again so soon due to the clearest bout of dark skies in my life. Nearly 4 weeks straight of clear nights up here in the Rockies. It is our dry season here (finally) which is much dryer than Denver has been around this time in the past. I have been taking full advantage as I have collected over 150 hrs of data on three objects. A personal record I dont intend on beating, haha!

Anyways, this is the Iris Nebula. Ive grabbed data on this target only one time before... about 3 years ago. My wife, Sarah (gf at the time) and I had planned a camping trip in the smokies. I brought all my AP gear just to realize that bortle 1 skies dont matter during a full moon. I clearly hadnt thought out the timing of our trip (we all make mistakes, right?). Since then I have always wanted to do a better job. It is such an intriguing target to me. One of the prettiest up there.

I spent the past two weeks collecting 31 hours of luminance data while my buddy shared some of his RGB data to save some time. This is 40 total hours of data in bortle 4.5 skies.

Clear skies,
Teagan

AT8RC
CEM60
ASI1600MM-pro
Astrodon L, Chroma RGB
QHY5;L-ii guide cam

294x600s subs

Location: Pine, CO

7 hours ago, john2y said:

That image looks great and I admire your dedication for this one, but something's wrong in your imaging train, look at the stars in your top right corner. It's like the camera was pulling on one side of the focuser so much the sensor stopped being parallel with the rest of the imaging train. I used to have the same problem, I'd recommend checking the stiffness of the focuser and retightening of every screw around it. Also this might be just my taste but I would hold back on with the denoising, with 53 hours you don't really need it and the result looks a bit too plastic. A little noise is good it adds sharpness to the image. 

So my focuser is a POS stock. I’m getting s moonlight soon. This may solve the problem but a wind storm came and blew over my imaging rig a few months ago destroying the collimation. That’s may also be the issue. As per the noise.. my image was still rather noisy which was shocking. I admit I did a little too much noise reduction. I plan on processing it again. Thanks so much for the tips!

6 hours ago, Astrobug said:

Really nice picture. 

Thank you astro bug!

5 hours ago, artem said:

WOW, amazing image " JAW OPEN 😲"

Thank you much, Artem! 

42 minutes ago, carastro said:

That's one classy image, well done.

Carole 

Thank you very much, Carole

greetings yall!

Ive had consistently clear skies the past two weeks so I have been taking full advantage!

The WingED Bat Nebula - This is a very small portion of the entire Veil complex, a huge supernova remnant left over from star explosion nearly 10,000 years ago. This star would have shined bright enough to be seen during the day! The thin, spiral like filaments are high in Hydrogen alpha and Oxygen particles creating the red and blue colors you see before you. The stars were added using visible light filters (RGB) to give this image a most natural look. I hope you all enjoy!
Exposure details:
30hrs Oiii (3nm)
20hrs Ha (3nm)
1hrs RGB (each)
Total exposure time: 53hrs

Equipment Details:
At8rc
cem60
Asi1600mm pro
Astrodon HaOiiiRGB

It's been two months in the making. And despite vacations, crappy weather, and equipment reconfiguration, I'VE FINALLY FINISHED! This image consists of 30 hrs each Ha and Oiii (3nm) as well as 1hrs each of RGB data for the stars. I shot the RGB data the past two night during the full moon so a little more data was needed. I originally thought 30 min each would do the trick but 1hr each produced much more colorful stars. This is my longest project to date so I tried to be pretty meticulous when it came to post processing, especially in getting that outer Oiii shell to show. I call it the energy shield! Anyways, I hope you all enjoy!

The Crescent Nebula (Description by Nasa's APOD) - "NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble about 25 light-years across, blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. This sharp telescopic portrait uses narrow band image data that isolates light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the wind-blown nebula. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the detailed folds and filaments. Visible within the nebula, NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. The nebula's complex structures are likely the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life this star should ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years away. "

Eqiupiment:
AT8RC
CEM60
ASI1600mm-pro
Astrodon HA/OIII/RGB
QHY5L-ii autoguider
phd, spg, pix, ps, dss

Exposure details:
180x600s (ha)
180x600s (Oiii)
60x60x RGB (ea.)

Dates:
7/4, 7/5, 7/6, 7/7, 7/9, 7/28, 7/29, 7/30, 8/1, 8/2, 8/3, 8/4, 8/6, 8/7, 8/11 8/12, 8/13, 8/14, 8/15,

17 minutes ago, DougM43 said:

That’s an absolutely fantastic image, 🙂 

Thank you, Doug! I’m extremely happy with it! 

3 hours ago, Rodd said:

I disagree with Gina........................Its Amazingly good!  One of the best I have seen--and it does not look like a bicolor, which makes it even better

Rodd

Wow thank you very much, Rodd!

Greetings!

Happy Fourth of July Yall!! Here is the Eagle and Her Pillars.

This is hands down one of my top 3 favorite regions of the sky. I have been waiting to shoot this target and do those pillars justice for three years now. I'm glad I finally got it.I feel like every one of us has one or even a couple of those targets that we always want to shoot but for some reason the universe just doesnt let us. Hope you all enjoy!

This is a bicolor (Ha/Oiii) image of M16 consisting of 25 hours of data (15ha 10oiii).

Equipment:
At8rc
Asi1600mm p
Cem60 EQG
Astrodon 3nm Ha/Oiii
Gain 139, Offset 21, 300s subs

Greetings!

Grettings,

A few weeks ago a wind storm came through and blew over my entire imaging rig. The biggest issue that has arose are the optics in my 8rc. Collimation was atrocious when I checked it. I have been using a star test for collimation as well as a cheshire eyepiece. I know in the images below the donuts arent PERFECTLY centered but Im noticing an artifact in each unfocused star at about 5 o'clock... The focused rstars look triangular in shape.. not like poor collimation but moreso pinched optics. This wasnt a problem before the fall.. How may I diagnose this issue or figure out which component of my scope is causing the issue? Im hoping the OTA is not bent. Its a carbon fiber OTA.. the fall resulted in a few scratches but thats the only physical damage that I could see.

If you have any more questions about my collimation procedure or the incident, let me know.

Clear skies
Teagan

Wow! Wonderful images! I have not had great luck so far this year. A complete imaging rig swap and a broken ccd has delayed any imaging opportunities since January. Hopefully everyone has had some clear summer nights?? Here my five from 2017