pietervdv

Looks amazing Tom! Such a wealth of details, could look for hours at this. Hats off for your persistence and patience to produce such a huge image! On to Cygnus now! Pieter

Thanks all for taking the time to look and comment! Pieter

That looks fantastic!

Thanks, that is correct! Pieter

Hi all, Making a deep Abell1656 has been on my bucket list for some years; and now I finally made an attempt at it. I escaped the fuss of Christmas and New Year's celebrations to enjoy a great week in Southern France Provence for imaging. The weather was great with 4 out of 6 crystal clear 12 hour long nights. This is the first result; a long haul in Luminance on this impressive Galaxy Cluster. I did not bother with colour as I feel it does not add much. Equipment: Homebuilt 10" f/3.8 Astrograph with Wynne corrector on a Mesu200 mount Sensor: ASI-1600MM-Cool cmos -20°C Exposure: 10 hrs (5 min subs) Filter: Baader Luminance Capture and Calibration: Sequence Generator Pro and Astro Pixel Processor Thanks for checking it out, Regards, Pieter

Very nice, pioneering work!

Great pic! I really like how you hunt down all these faint nebulae. You put in a lot of hours, but the results are clearly showing and bring something off the beaten track. Exactly what I would (try to) do if I had a remote observatory! Regards, Pieter

Outstanding, what a nice structure! This is added to my bucket list... Pieter

Thanks all for taking the time to look and comment. I took into account some of @vlaiv his great feedback and improved the seams of the mosaic. I also overlaid an old M31 taken some years ago and tried to reduce the burnt core. I improved the contrast in the spiral arms ever so slightly... Perhaps not perfect, but time to put this one to rest. Here is a new link for the Full size Thanks & regards, Pieter

Thanks for your comments, I don't mind at all as they are all 100% correct. I appreciate you taking the time to comment in such detail! The pic is indeed a bit over sampled and the seeing in Provence can be pretty bad at times. The small defects during stitching indeed need some more attention, I'll sit down for that to rectify that. I stitched the panels manually in PS as my pc nearly went up in flames when I fed the mosaic to APP. About the blown cores, I understand what you mean. But I often find it looking too flat & manipulated when the cores are dimmed. Personal taste I guess... Thanks, Pieter

Hello all, I have finally processed my imaging data from this summer's (August) visit to Southern France; there I joined my trusted imaging companions Frans Kroon and Maurice Toet for a great week. I'd set my sights on a 6 panel mosaic of M31; each panel is exposed for 2 hours, so 12 hours in total using a Luminance filter. Some nights were plagued a bit by high clouds so I had to deal with mild gradients and noise in some panels. My processing skills are also a bit rusty, but I hope I managed to make it look ok. I did not do any major processing on it, mere stretches and curves and stitching the panels together. I always have a preference for b&w as it reminds me of the works of the early astrophotographers (another explanation is; I am lazy and don't like to tweak endlessly behind a computer ) Equipment: Homebuilt 10" f/3.8 Astrograph with Wynne corrector on a Mesu200 mount Sensor: ASI-1600MM-cool cmos -10°C (it was T-shirt weather all night long) Exposure: 6 x 2 hrs (5 min subs for all 6 panels), totaling 12hrs. Filter: Baader Luminance Capture and calibration: Sequence Generator Pro and Astro Pixel Processor. You can find the highest res version on my website, the full size is 68 MP. Full res M31 Thanks for checking it out, Regards, Pieter

I imaged this object myself last year and my effort pales next to your image. Especially the outer ha nebulosity is ultra faint. Hats off! It's a superb shot! Pieter

Martin, It looks fantastic! Good to see you are liking your asi-1600! Best regards, Pieter

Thanks all for taking the time to look and comment! The Berlebach Planet is made from Ash wood and extremely stable, it can carry 120 kg without breaking a sweat. Been very happy with it. Pieter

Hello all, Last week I collected some o3 data from Southern France during my annual astro imaging field trip with 2 other imaging friends. The o3 shell in WR134 is very faint and could use even more exposure time. The HA data was made from my badly light polluted home locating in Belgium. I included a pic of my setup I drove 1000 km to get there. Equipment: Homebuilt 10" f/3.8 Astrograph with Wynne corrector Mount: Mesu 200 Sensor: ASI-1600MM-cool cmos -10°C Exposure: 14 hrs (5 min subs); unity gain setting Filters: Astrodon 5 nm H-alpha / Baader 4,5nm OIII 7 hours for each channel. Channels assembled as HA:O3:O3 Thanks for checking it out, Best regards, Pieter