Pelicans and Elephants in space :)

[Avdhoeven]

Last summer I worked together with a fellow astrophotographer (Daniel Verloop) here in the Netherlands on an imaging project to combine our data of the Elephant Trunk and the Pelican Nebula. Since I only entered this forum later I will post them, because I think they are worthwhile sharing.

The first image we took together was the Elephant Trunk Nebula. I made images of the trunk itself with my ED80/SXV-H9 while Daniel took images with his Tak-FSQ85 with QSI583 camera for the broader view. We decided to go for narrowband imaging with Ha, OIII and SII.

Later these images were combined with an RGB dataset of Yves, another fellow photographer, to get out the original star colors.

Processing and integration of the images was done by me.

Total exposures are:

Ha: 6x1800s (ED80 4,5nm Custom scientific)/6x1800s (FSQ85 5nm astrodon)

OIII: 7x1800s (FSQ85 5nm astrodon)

SII: 7x1800s (FSQ85 5nm astrodon)

RGB:

4 hours canon 40D + 300mm lens

8 hours Tak 85 with reducer and ATIK 4000 and Ha 7nm

4 hours Tak 85 with H35 and Ha 7nm

So a total of 29 hours of data was used for this image.

For our second project we decided to go even deeper with longer exposure time in the narrowband range. We decided to make a widefield of the Pelican Nebula. I took the images of the pelican area with my ED80 and even C11 sometimes while Daniel took the widefields again with his FSQ85.

Now we took the following exposures:

Ha: 18x1800s (FSQ85 5nm astrodon), 20x1800s (ED80 4,5 nm custom scientific)

OIII: 8x1800s (FSQ85 5nm astrodon)

SII: 8x1800s (FSQ85 5nm astrodon)

So in total 27 hours of narrowband data was used.

The image size was reduced a bit in these images to make them viewable....

[Tommy B]

Holy mother of god the detail in those pics is insane!

This is truely wonderful, thanks for sharing.

[Stargazer Jack]

Very good images, well done

[johnh]

Exceptional results, quality shows because of the time put in. Pelican OIII is so detailed.

John.

[ollypenrice]

Very nice indeed. You cannot beat having lots of data. Was that Yves VdeB? He was working on the ET while at my place.

Olly

[Aris Panagiotopoulos]

Great HST Images....just GREAT!

[Looking Up]

WOW! Now that is a work of art!

[Fenriz]

I 100% echo what Tommy B said.....Fantastic job.

[darkmyth]

awesomeeeeeeeeeeee

[parvee]

I guess you guys got as close to perfection as it gets.

[Darth Takahashi]

Very very nice captures...this is definately the way to go to get lots of good data...collaboration!!! Its really paid off.

[PaulKummer]

Exceptional images, very deep and detailed, and beautifully processed.

Paul

[AndyUK]

I would totally sell my soul to be able to get images like these - As Olly said, there's a LOT to be said for collaboration (especially with the weather we get) but to my mind these are supreme examples. Thank you very much for sharing them... even though they both make the bar that I was aiming for just that little bit further away!

[Whirlwind]

Lovely images, I can only hope one day I can get to a fraction of the quality of your images!

Ian

[LukeSkywatcher]

Yowsa!!!!!!!!!

is yowsa even a word?

[RobH]

An excellent result from the collaboration, and very seamlessly combined....it makes me wonder just how much data on a particular object we could put together ....hmmmm

Cheers

Rob

[vdb]

I already new this picture from the dutch forum ... Thanks Andre for mentioning me, but quite frankly I had 0.0000001% contribution ...

Yves.

PS I think my ET is better though ;-)

[namreg]

Speechless

[Fay]

Two really beautiful images, fantastic!

Fay

[psemil]

Congratulations. This is a great result for such a hard work.

[foundaplanet]

And taken from the earth...

Incredible..Superb..

[Penfold]

Fantastic stuff... Great collaboration work.

[Dude]

Totally blown away by these pictures. If I did not know better I would have said only Hubble could take shots like this!

[SkyJamie]

Amazing images!

Jamie

[prokyon]

Stunners, real stunners!!!!