M27, my impatience showing...

[ollypenrice]

This is taking a while, with about 4.5 hours colour, 8.5 hours O111 and just 4 hours of Ha. More Ha is to come but for the moment this is how it's shaping up. The outer shell makes you think of getting blood out of a stone...

Lots of work on the starfield to keep the field stars small.

Yves' 14 inch ODK on Mesu Mount 200 with SX H36 CCD.

Olly

[Gina]

WOW!! That is absolutely fantastic Olly - so much more than I've ever seen before on that object - never seen those outer parts before - wonderful That was a lot of effort but well worth it I think

[DirkSteele]

Already I think "Wow!" Cannot wait to see the final image.

[mgirdwood]

almost jumps out the screen at me Olly, brilliant and "unfinished"

[LDUNN1]

........I don't think I'll post my quick one of M27 from last night now ;-)

An inspiration to us all Olly, many thanks, & great job!

[Quatermass]

Coooor!

[Stargazer Jack]

What an amazing image

[ollypenrice]

...then I had an idea; make a 3-channel NB image of Ha/O111/Fifty-fifty of each and try it as a luminance layer to enhance and smooth the halo. I tried it once on the Veil and it didn't work! This time I think it did. It's hard to get the web version right in terms of colour and black point on my gallery site but here goes...

Olly

[AndyUK]

Very nice indeed Olly - Raising the bar again (as usual!). Can I ask what exposure lengths you used...?

[steppenwolf]

Looking very good already, Olly - love the filamentary bits to the right.

[ollypenrice]

Very nice indeed Olly - Raising the bar again (as usual!). Can I ask what exposure lengths you used...?

You certainly can, Andy, and the answer is 15 minutes for the R,G and B and thirty minutes for the Ha and O111. There is no doubt that for NB in this setup you need half hour subs. I made the mistake of trying 20 mins for the Crescent but soon went back the 30, as Yves had suggested in the first place.

Olly

[Mr Spock]

Spectacular image. I've never seen it look like this before. I can't wait to see it finished.

[gingergeek]

sheer beauty as always Olly

[JamesF]

Puts just about every other dumbbell image I've seen to shame already.

James

[AndyUK]

You certainly can, Andy, and the answer is 15 minutes for the R,G and B and thirty minutes for the Ha and O111. There is no doubt that for NB in this setup you need half hour subs. I made the mistake of trying 20 mins for the Crescent but soon went back the 30, as Yves had suggested in the first place

Cheers Olly - I believe that ODK is f6.8?. If so, that gives me a little hope... although I must admit, I've seen 30 min subs looming on my horizon for quite a while now, although I seriously doubt my PA process is good enough at the moment

[ollypenrice]

Cheers Olly - I believe that ODK is f6.8?. If so, that gives me a little hope... although I must admit, I've seen 30 min subs looming on my horizon for quite a while now, although I seriously doubt my PA process is good enough at the moment

Don't panic, Andy, the H36 is very slow in H alpha. With the 4000s I never go to 30 minutes on anything. The 314L is a real photon hoover, especially in Ha. I had an almost back to back comparison recently of H36 and 314L in Ha at around F7 and the 314L was SO much faster. Why won't Sony make big chips? (Sobs into hanky...)

Olly

[vdb]

the 286 chip and now the new 694 are indeed more sensitive and have 5 times less noise, that last one is important for the hallo ... as it would hide in the noise ...

Now to the real topic, god I'm f#$k I can never reach that quality with the same subs ... looking forward to see that on your screen in a few weeks from now ...

Maybe I should put an Ha filter in that QSI ;-)

Yves.

[ollypenrice]

the 286 chip and now the new 694 are indeed more sensitive and have 5 times less noise, that last one is important for the hallo ... as it would hide in the noise ...

Now to the real topic, god I'm f#$k I can never reach that quality with the same subs ... looking forward to see that on your screen in a few weeks from now ...

Maybe I should put an Ha filter in that QSI ;-)

Yves.

Heh Heh, I'll show you how I do it but you won't like it! You're a scientist and I'm an artist (bodger, cheat, quick fix merchant, totally unprincipled..) Oh, and I can call this my job so I spend days and days on it...

Olly

[RobH]

Pretty good start on the halo Olly...if it's tricky from your dark skies spare a thought for us lot on our cloudy island!!

My H18 is really slow on Ha compared to the 16HR (same chip as the 314) too, and I must say that, despite the smaller chip size, the new 694 is looking pretty tempting.

EDIT.....just thought...how are you liking the diffraction spikes from the ODK?.....I must say that I rather like the ones I've been getting from the RC even though I resisted getting a scope that would give spikes for ages!!

Cheers

Rob

[Anweniel]

Very impressive as usual Olly, I think theres more of the outer halo to come yet, presumably with the Ha data. 17+ hours..I could only dream!!

[ollypenrice]

Pretty good start on the halo Olly...if it's tricky from your dark skies spare a thought for us lot on our cloudy island!!

My H18 is really slow on Ha compared to the 16HR (same chip as the 314) too, and I must say that, despite the smaller chip size, the new 694 is looking pretty tempting.

EDIT.....just thought...how are you liking the diffraction spikes from the ODK?.....I must say that I rather like the ones I've been getting from the RC even though I resisted getting a scope that would give spikes for ages!!

Cheers

Rob

I can't say I'm a spikes fan but at long focal length they are not spoiling my afternoon! There are not many spikey stars in the FOV at 2.4 metres. I wouldn't want a widefield reflector, though. You'd have dozens of spikes and, worse, dozens of small square stars in the field. The Tak Epsilon gives this look. I asked Ralf Ottow whether you could mod an Epsilon using an optical window instead of a spider and he said you could.

Now that would certainly tempt me.

Olly

[AndyUK]

Thanks Olly / Yves (Rob) - I see M27 images like this (and M57) and have always imagined I'd need 30+ mins exposures with the 314L+ to get the necessary depth to pick up the halo's. I'll have to have another go sometime and see what I get....

[Gina]

I can't say I'm a spikes fan but at long focal length they are not spoiling my afternoon! There are not many spikey stars in the FOV at 2.4 metres. I wouldn't want a widefield reflector, though. You'd have dozens of spikes and, worse, dozens of small square stars in the field. The Tak Epsilon gives this look. I asked Ralf Ottow whether you could mod an Epsilon using an optical window instead of a spider and he said you could.

Now that would certainly tempt me.

Olly

I don't like spikes and that is one reason I didn't get a 200mm Newt. I agree that with a 2.4m FL the field would be narrow enough to avoid most of the brighter and spikey stars and that might not be too bad but that sort of scope is well beyond my means and would need a much bigger observatory. I started with a small Newt so have had experience of spikey stars. When I get a bigger scope later on it won't have a spider.

[rfdesigner]

Olly

Lovely image, as always.

I had a google for what the outer halo might look like and stumbled on this

http://dg-imaging.astrodon.com/gallery/display.cfm?imgID=148

I didn't realise the NII spectra were anywhere near Ha, just thought you'd be interested.

Derek

[nytecam]

........I don't think I'll post my quick one of M27 from last night now ;-)

An inspiration to us all Olly, many thanks, & great job!

Please post your M27 If we all waited for or expected results like Olly's we'd be the poorer

ps: my other scope is HST !