LBN347 and Sh2-126

[ollypenrice]

Many thanks to Maurice Toet who pointed this target out to me on his recent visit. It's a very strange beast! When you look at the Ha layer and the luminance it's hard to believe that they are part of the same image.

This had 5.25 hours in the tandem, so that's 11.5 hours of data. 3nm Ha 9x30 mins, L 18x15 mins and 6x10 mins per colour. I was going to double the colour but we had a 'sky failure' so I processed what I had and it seems fine. I think a panel below this would be a good idea to see what all that Ha is up to...

Olly

[Stephen Green]

As all ways Olly great image and detail

[RichLD]

That's gorgeous Olly, very much digging the saturation! I'd definitely go for the lower panel, so much luverly gas 

[mftoet]

Very nice Olly. I definitely need to add Ha to my DSLR version ;-) I also need to adjust the blackpoint of my image and have to take a careful look at gradients versus real dusty patches. 

[ollypenrice]

12 minutes ago, mftoet said:

Very nice Olly. I definitely need to add Ha to my DSLR version ;-) I also need to adjust the blackpoint of my image and have to take a careful look at gradients versus real dusty patches. 

It would be a pleasure to send you some, Sir! I'll start the slow uploading process now...

Olly

[toxic]

what a beaut  nowt ells to say

[Barry-Wilson]

That's a very striking image Olly with the bold Ha-red ribbons and delicate dusty nebula.  I love the brilliant hot blue stars.  +1 vote for the lower panel .

Another high quality image from your Tak set up, wonderful Olly.

[PatrickGilliland]

Both your version and Maurice's are cracking - this will hit the list of to do's for sure.  The brown dust interplay with the red makes for a unique image.  Well done.  Paddy 

[ollypenrice]

21 minutes ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Both your version and Maurice's are cracking - this will hit the list of to do's for sure.  The brown dust interplay with the red makes for a unique image.  Well done.  Paddy 

Yes, that's the charm of the target, I think. It's very unusual. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Olly

[Singlin]

Another benchmark  

[swag72]

This is a beautiful 3D looking image - You can really feel the separation between the dust and the Ha detail.....

[sharkmelley]

I've just seen Maurice's version and then came across this.  That's a cracking image!

Mark

[andrewluck]

Hi Ollie

Are you sure about the catalog designations? My star atlas has Sh2-114 listed as LBN347 and Sh2-126 as LBN428.

I'd be following the dust up rather than the Ha down

Cheers

Andrew

[Rodd]

3D for sure.  A panel below would look good--and to the left, right, up.....  It is somewhat reminiscent of your "breaking wave" nebula (or what ever you called it--the Lum in this case is the foam on the wave top.  Are you averse to star reduction (number--not size)?    

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, Rodd said:

3D for sure.  A panel below would look good--and to the left, right, up.....  It is somewhat reminiscent of your "breaking wave" nebula (or what ever you called it--the Lum in this case is the foam on the wave top.  Are you averse to star reduction (number--not size)?    

I try to keep star size down during the stretches, so I do an initial gentle stretch under a mask but then that's the end of masking, usually. I can't stop the stars losing their shape or natural outer edges if I mask for too long. I then do a star reduction at the end but, again, not too fiercely. In many cases a very light application of the 3nm Ha filter in luminance (I do mean very light) pulls the stars down but in this case the Ha as lum would have clobbered the dusty stuff with which it bears no relation.

I've never tried to reduce the number of stars.

Olly

[Rodd]

11 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I try to keep star size down during the stretches, so I do an initial gentle stretch under a mask but then that's the end of masking, usually. I can't stop the stars losing their shape or natural outer edges if I mask for too long. I then do a star reduction at the end but, again, not too fiercely. In many cases a very light application of the 3nm Ha filter in luminance (I do mean very light) pulls the stars down but in this case the Ha as lum would have clobbered the dusty stuff with which it bears no relation.

I've never tried to reduce the number of stars.

Olly

Maybe a dumb question--but I know you are somewhat familiar with PI--does that include using morphological transformation to "reduce" stars?  Its applied using a contoured star mask (little circles around the edges of stars--like rings).  I have always thought that this reduces star numbers-but maybe this is an illusion? Maybe the dim ones become so faint one does not notice them unless one looks closely--but they are still there?

[ollypenrice]

I do it in Photoshop but I think your explanation will be correct.

Olly

[mftoet]

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It would be a pleasure to send you some, Sir! I'll start the slow uploading process now...

Thank you Olly. I've received the download link.

Quote

Are you sure about the catalog designations? My star atlas has Sh2-114 listed as LBN347 and Sh2-126 as LBN428.

It's a typo: the brown S-shaped nebula is catalogued as LBN 437.

[johnrt]

Anyone know where I can buy a waterproof monitor from, as I keep spraying mine with tea every time I open one of these darned impressive imaging topics. You all need to stop this as it's going to cost me a fortune in replacement electrical appliances.

[Rodd]

2 hours ago, johnrt said:

Anyone know where I can buy a waterproof monitor from, as I keep spraying mine with tea every time I open one of these darned impressive imaging topics. You all need to stop this as it's going to cost me a fortune in replacement electrical appliances.

Switch to gin...you won't notice the broken monitor!

[ollypenrice]

Well, I'm a couple of hours away from finishing the lower panel. To my absolute disgust a long term problem with one half of the tandem has returned. The flats are over correcting again. How can this be? They are the same darned flats I used on the top half of the image, for gawd's sake! Nothing has changed in the capture or the sky. The other half of the tandem corrected perfectly so it isn't the sky. I think it must be some hidden capture mode in Nebulosity, something that changes the way the image is captured. I am ready to commit murder - or suicide! Anyway I need luminance for the bottom half and I will - oh yes!- beat it into submission with or without workable flats.

I see the moon is coming back meaning I can go to bed and catch up on my sleep in a few days. I feel that need!!!!

lly

[sharkmelley]

26 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

To my absolute disgust a long term problem with one half of the tandem has returned. The flats are over correcting again. How can this be? They are the same darned flats I used on the top half of the image, for gawd's sake! Nothing has changed in the capture or the sky. The other half of the tandem corrected perfectly so it isn't the sky.

That is really frustrating.  There is clearly a difference between the two sets of lights if the master flat corrects one and not the other.  Is there an obvious difference in the background sky fog level in each set of lights?  If so, can you tell why?  Maybe there's a slight non-linearity in the sensor response and the two sets of lights are on slightly different parts of the response curve.

Maybe the background light is actually distributed differently across the frame.  Was the dew shield in the same position? Could there have been reflective damp in the dew shield?

Grasping at straws here ...

Mark

[peter shah]

I think I have a new favourite object.... unusual to see the underlying emission.... when I think you cant get any better....well you come out with something like this....just a joy to look at

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, sharkmelley said:

That is really frustrating.  There is clearly a difference between the two sets of lights if the master flat corrects one and not the other.  Is there an obvious difference in the background sky fog level in each set of lights?  If so, can you tell why?  Maybe there's a slight non-linearity in the sensor response and the two sets of lights are on slightly different parts of the response curve.

Maybe the background light is actually distributed differently across the frame.  Was the dew shield in the same position? Could there have been reflective damp in the dew shield?

Grasping at straws here ...

Mark

Thanks for the moral support, Mark! The over correction is extreme - really extreme - and systematic. There is no mistaking it and it is always the same, so I don't think it is optical in character. I'm sure it's in the IT side of the operation somehow. Mysteriously it vanished for quite a while and then reappeared. More recently I fixed it by shooting a set of flats in AstroArt on a PC rather than the default Nebulosity/MAC in which that side of the tandem runs, for historical reasons. The Astro Art flats worked fine for the MAC captures, until last night. (I tried the Astro Art flats because the ever helpful Harry Page thought it would be a lack of adequate flushing when doing flats in Nebulosity. Until the regular flats stopped working this was a perfectly good theory but why would they suddenly stop working?) I know that capture software sometimes has options for fast download etc but I cannot see that I've changed anything in Nebulosity. Still, I strongly suspect that this will be behind it. I just need to find where this download mode is in Neb! Blowed if I can see it.

Why do I like Artemis Capture? Probably because it's perfect!

Olly

[mftoet]

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I just need to find where this download mode is in Neb!

Check the settings under Nebulosity > Preferencers > Output. There you can change the way Nebulosity stores the FITS-files. It would be odd though if the settings would suddenly change by themselves. Might have something to do with Maxim versus ImagePlus style FITS and/or saving in 32-bit instead of 16-bit format. Just thinking out loud...