Happy Multispectral Valentine's Day!

[Dom543]

Happy Valentine's Day to All!

I have been away from forums and astronomy for some time due to intense work and travel schedule.

Now we have been blessed with a couple of clear and mild nights, so above is one of the first results. I am still using LodestarLive Test Build 007, as that's what I found installed on my computer from when I last used it for astronomy. The above image is 3x30sec exposures with H-alpha filter mean stacked and assigned to the red channel and 3x30sec exposures with an O-III filter assigned to the green and blue channels. The camera is a Lodestar x2 monochrome. The outcome is anatomically correct showing that the blood in one of the chambers is saturated with Oxygen.

For comparison I also include my capture from a year ago, when I just started out with my Lodestar x2 color and H-alpha filter as my favorite tool.

As always in a comparison, each version has its pluses and minuses. In this case, the cost of the inclusion of the Oxygen spectrum is a clutter of stars. Also many of the stars show up cyan colored, as the tiny H-alpha emission component is not sufficient to supply enough red to yield white. This could be avoided by adding one more exposure with a broad band red filter. It is also interesting to note that the multispectral image was made with half as long exposures. This can be attributed to the 0.5 stop focal ratio difference between the lenses and the increased sensitivity of the monochrome camera.

Clear Skies!

--Dom

[Astrojedi]

You too Dom. The capture has a really unique look to it. Almost looks like a watercolor. Never seen the nebula rendered like this.

[RobertI]

Very appropriate for Valentine day!  That 'extreme colouring' nicely highlights where the Oiii emits in the nebula which is not very obvious in most images, nice illustration.