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M42 Large format image.

ollypenrice

By ollypenrice
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Taken over the last two nights with zicklurky who is not getting much sleep!

This is from our TEC140 triplet Apo and Atik 11000 mono camera. LRGB. Sub lengths were 40 seconds for the Trapezium then 5 minutes and 15 minutes. The 5 minutes were just taken because the guiding was lousy last night. Layer masking in Photoshop. The four Trapezium stars used an Ha layer from the ODK14 as luminance.

It's worth having a look at the full size version. I particularly like M43 or De Mairan's Nebula.

M42%20TEC%20LRGB%20FIN4-L.jpg

Crop

M42%20TEC%20LRGB%20FIN4%20crop-L.jpg

Full http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2946804260&k=mtGhNv6&lb=1&s=O

Olly

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Hi Brenda,

It doesn't seem particularly blue on my screen. In fact lots of renditions have more magenta in the reds than I have here. LP filters, which I don't use or need, tend to rob the blue of signal, though. The dominant signal inthsi target is red so the blues will be less often seen, maybe?

Olly

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symesie04

symesie04

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Crikey Olly that is as detailed M42 I have ever seen outside of Hubble i reckon. Its truly stunning. The rich area of the Running man looks solid like ribbon of plastic. And its huuuge! No mosaic right just straight of the bat so to speak?  Quite exquisitely processed as always as well.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Crikey Olly that is as detailed M42 I have ever seen outside of Hubble i reckon. Its truly stunning. The rich area of the Running man looks solid like ribbon of plastic. And its huuuge! No mosaic right just straight of the bat so to speak?  Quite exquisitely processed as always as well.

Thanks and, yes, a single frame of the Atik 11000.

Olly

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Ooh la la... Tres tres beau Monsieur, bravo!! Yet again, Penrice sets the imaging standard.

This target is my project for January... This gives me the lid of the jigsaw to use as reference! I dread to think what my version will look like next to this!

Olly, out of interest, what would you say were the major obstacles to obtaining this image?

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swag72

swag72

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This is looking lovely Olly - No doubt about it. I hope that this can serve as something of a template for others, in that it is nice to see a good core. Generally I see either ones that are burnt out to hell and back or have been subjected to more PI wavelets than is good for them and have ended up nothing more than a hard grey areas with details that just don't look normal.

To my eye's this is just right!!! Super image Olly!

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Ooh la la... Tres tres beau Monsieur, bravo!! Yet again, Penrice sets the imaging standard.

This target is my project for January... This gives me the lid of the jigsaw to use as reference! I dread to think what my version will look like next to this!

Olly, out of interest, what would you say were the major obstacles to obtaining this image?

Thanks. One obstacle was the blessèd mount which simply refused to track properly out of the blue. I'd have gone for a full set of 30 minute L subs had this not been the case, and gone deeper. Fortunately, in this target the bright Trapezium region has all the detail and comes from the sharp 40 second subs.

The hard part is the dynamic range. As Sara suggests, using HDR wavelets can produce a very obviously processed look which stands out a mile. I've just done a magazine piece on how to use layer masks in Photoshop for imaging M42. Based on my first efforts at F5 I found it an advantage to shoot three sets of subs of varied exposure. This time, at F7, I only used three because of the guiding hassles. I think the 40 second and 30 minute subs would in fact have covered the range, though the long subs would need to be prepared in two stretches, a hard and a soft, blended in layer masks. This is what I did here. For long subs you do need a very dark site or they won't work.

Using layer masks is not something that you can describe as a formula, it requires patience when blurring and applying Curves to the mask. Getting the mask right while observing the blended layers in real time is the secret.  Also expect to play the curve of the top (short exposure) layer and adjust its colour balance and saturation before flattening the layers. It will probably need a big boost in saturation.

I'm pleased with the resolution in the Trapezium/M43 region but seen zoomed out I feel this version is rather flat. More data would allow more local contrasts to be brought out. FIrst I need to sort out the mount or get the EQ8 into service when it comes.

I applied the new TEC data over a widefield from the focally reduced FSQ85 during last nght's imaging. The Running Man/M43 is transformed. The widefeild has an Ha layer.

M42%20WIDE%202FLsV2%20plus%20FULL%20TEC%

Old in full http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2338063598&k=rNfQT5R&lb=1&s=O

New in full http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2947691585&k=8Fg7pg8&lb=1&s=O

Olly

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Great image Olly, I wonder what you think is required to get it like the one below - more FL or larger aperture:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130320.html

Mark

Yes, that's a very unusual image and very fine. I can't find any details for it but it looks as if it's mainly narrowband, or has a mixture of narrowband and natural colour. I don't really do 'narrowband only' images so I don't know how he did this one.

I don't think you need enormous aperture if you don't want to create a huge image in terms of pixel count. Whlile Rob Gendler's splendid mosaic with the 20 inch is wonderfully deep and strong in colour http://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M42mosaicNMLL.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M42mosaicNMLL.html&h=2224&w=3000&sz=1418&tbnid=rPjgcvEX8etNdM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=121&zoom=1&usg=__JQaDcI5p1r5MveqA9N9cTrfa5Uo=&docid=eCi7qtT8W25NEM&sa=X&ei=8u6eUo_2M4yM0wXLjIHwCw&ved=0CG0Q9QEwBg&dur=421

he's taken a processing decison to allow the Trap and M43 to saturate. Taking a different decison I was able to resolve more details in these regions with the TEC140. I didn't have the  data to go as deep in the fainter regions so I had more spare range, so to speak, at the top end. In the end there is only so much dynamic range.

Olly

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Thanks Olly, that's interesting. Which mag and when?

Darn equipment... Hope you sort or replace soon!

Also, how long did you spend on processing all this to get to that result? I'm guessing a little more than ten minutes!!!

I think it will be in a forthcoming Astronomy Now. I sometimes do imaging pieces for them.

Processing took most of the day but not non stop. Maybe five hours? 

Olly

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