Dragon Face staring at a Vortex...

[MarsG76]

Hello All,

My next project, imaging the Dragon's Face Nebula, located just north of the Tarantula Nebula on the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Initially I was hoping to get the Dragon Face full frame but as it turns out, it won't/doesn't fill the frame, not even at 2032mm focal length.

This beauty disguised as a beast had been compromised of 27x600s ISO800 subs, shot with a modded Canon 40D last night.

It is still a WIP, and I was (and still am) hoping to add some more RGB data, as well as Ha and OIII to this, if time and weather permits, perhaps some SII.

I was going to continue with it tonight, but you guessed it... CLOUDS... so I did a quick process on the data that I have instead.

If I get to add more subs, I'll re-process only then.

Thanks for looking at the beast.

 

[Paul73]

Love it! Great DSLR result. Never seen that one before. A rare exotic treat from the south.

Paul

[Dave In Vermont]

Very cool indeed! I don't think I've ever seen this critter before!

So thank you for this piece,

Dave

[Craney]

Or.... a chameleon looking at a tasty fly.....

[lux eterna]

Interesting structure and nice colors. Well done !

Ragnar

[wimvb]

That's coming along nicely. I hope you can get more data on this beast.

I had to google this target, and there are not that many images out there.

Btw, I also like the vortex (ngc 2020)

[MarsG76]

6 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Love it! Great DSLR result. Never seen that one before. A rare exotic treat from the south.

Paul

It doesn't seem to get imaged much... perhaps due to is southern proximity....

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

That's coming along nicely. I hope you can get more data on this beast.

I had to google this target, and there are not that many images out there.

Btw, I also like the vortex (ngc 2020)

I hope to add more data to it tonight, its shaping up to be a clear night...

NGC 2020 looks like some Vortex or spinning ecreation disc around the star??

[MarsG76]

5 hours ago, Dave In Vermont said:

Very cool indeed! I don't think I've ever seen this critter before!

So thank you for this piece,

Dave

There are thousands of objects in and around the SCP... I got a copy of Mag 8.5 star maps which shows a massie amount of objects that I had no clue were there... so I want to start imaging more toward the south, and object that are rarely imaged....

[MarsG76]

2 hours ago, lux eterna said:

Interesting structure and nice colors. Well done !

Ragnar

There is a lot more nebulosity there.... I need longer and more subs... but I agree, it is interesting, definitely something different.

 

 

[MarsG76]

So like I stated above, I hope to add more data to it tonight since its shaping up to be a clear night.... capture more RGB subs, hour of short ones for star points and than longer subs to get more faint nebulosity, than tomorrow plan for the Ha and OIII and SII.

One thing I noticed when processing this image was the amount of coma I have (top left in the image) in the frame... I'll need to find a way to process that out.

 

I'll re-post this image deeper version once I have all of the rest of the data.

 

[Allinthehead]

Interesting object. Good luck tonight. I have mine out as we speak however a mass of cloud is hanging over the West of the country on a collision course with my interstellar photons 

Is coma caused by inaccurate spacing? I see similar stars on my Samyang so i'm assuming my spacing is still out.

[MarsG76]

5 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

Interesting object. Good luck tonight. I have mine out as we speak however a mass of cloud is hanging over the West of the country on a collision course with my interstellar photons 

Is coma caused by inaccurate spacing? I see similar stars on my Samyang so i'm assuming my spacing is still out.

Spacing might be a cause of it... usually I can crop it out, but in this object I need the whole frame.

The cloud situation is rubbish, I hate it when you start you session on a clear sky and before you know it, the clouds roll in... [removed word].. when it happens, say, half way through the night and I get some subs, than at least its not a total loss.. but imagine setting up for a new image, collimating, focusing, aligning, framing, finding the best guide star on your OAG, calibrating PHD and being all ready to capture your subs and than, as if by magic... few clouds moving past you object location, so you go inside to get a drink, thinking it'll pass by the time you have your drink... you're outside with in 2 minutes, look up and TOTAL CLOUDY COVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    AAARGHHH!!!

[wimvb]

2 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

There are thousands of objects in and around the SCP... I got a copy of Mag 8.5 star maps which shows a massie amount of objects that I had no clue were there... so I want to start imaging more toward the south, and object that are rarely imaged....

Had a quick look in my Pocket Sky Atlas. No shortage of targets, it seems.

But for some reason, you "down under" seem to have a larger portion of the globulars than we have.

(click to enlarge)

1 hour ago, MarsG76 said:

Spacing might be a cause of it... usually I can crop it out, but in this object I need the whole frame.

The cloud situation is rubbish, I hate it when you start you session on a clear sky and before you know it, the clouds roll in... [removed word].. when it happens, say, half way through the night and I get some subs, than at least its not a total loss.. but imagine setting up for a new image, collimating, focusing, aligning, framing, finding the best guide star on your OAG, calibrating PHD and being all ready to capture your subs and than, as if by magic... few clouds moving past you object location, so you go inside to get a drink, thinking it'll pass by the time you have your drink... you're outside with in 2 minutes, look up and TOTAL CLOUDY COVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    AAARGHHH!!!

I'm all too familiar with that feeling.

One benefit of having a cooled cmos is that gain is variable. I can choose to image at low gain with long exposures, or at high gain with short exposures. The short exposures don't need guiding, so one less thing that needs adjusting. Otoh, the total time on target is about the same, so lots more data on my hard drive, and download time eats imaging time. But at least I get a fair amount of data, even if the clouds move in.

[MarsG76]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

for some reason, you "down under" seem to have a larger portion of the globulars

We're just greedy.. eventually we'll have all of the objects here... BUA HA BUABUAHAHABUAHABHAHAHA

Ever seen Omega Centauri or 47Tuc through the EP? Amazing.

 

[MarsG76]

13 hours ago, wimvb said:

One benefit of having a cooled cmos is that gain is variable

Gain, aka ISO, and time exposure is variable using a DSLR too... and I prefer to use autoguiding on even the short subs... with short unguided subs there is still a too high percentage loss got my liking... with guiding I generally have 100% keepers if nothing interferes with the sky & scope.

[MarsG76]

Clear sky and so it's continues... after work I went to sleep earlier than normal so that I can wake up and setup to continue slaying the dragon.

Now that it's running, I can monitor on the iPad by my bed and catch another hour of subZZZZZZ...

Love it when autoguiding and conditions line up.

The plan is catch 90 min of 300s subs, than rest of night (after meridian flip) back to 600s RGB subs before the next night I move into capturing HAlpha.

[MikeODay]

Wonderful image with great detail.  I look forward to seeing it when you have added more data.

I had not thought of monitoring the session from my Ipad - was it hard to set up?

Cheers

Mike

[MarsG76]

53 minutes ago, MikeODay said:

Wonderful image with great detail.  I look forward to seeing it when you have added more data.

I had not thought of monitoring the session from my Ipad - was it hard to set up?

Cheers

Mike

Not at all... I setup TightVNC on the laptop and Mocha VNC on the iPad... easy to setup and the software is stable.

More data should bring out more fine nebulosity... 

[MikeODay]

1 hour ago, MarsG76 said:

Not at all... I setup TightVNC on the laptop and Mocha VNC on the iPad... easy to setup and the software is stable.

More data should bring out more fine nebulosity... 

Thanks, I’ll look them up.

Cheers

Mike

[MarsG76]

15 hours ago, MikeODay said:

Thanks, I’ll look them up.

Cheers

Mike

Any time....

I tried to grab some HAlpha subs for the dragon last night... I managed th get 8 x 20 min ISO800 subs before the clouds ruined the reminder of the night... and tonight will be overcast after the 42 degree C forecast day. It's hot but not dry.. come on drought.....

 

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, MarsG76 said:

and tonight will be overcast after the 42 degree C forecast day. It's hot but not dry.. come on drought...

It's overcast and not dry here either. Just 40 C colder. 

[MarsG76]

21 hours ago, wimvb said:

It's overcast and not dry here either. Just 40 C colder. 

That sounds refreshing.... Brrrrr... Snow angels in the buff?

 

 

[wimvb]

We've had a fair amount of snow. But at 2 C, and rain, most of it has melted by now. We consider this time of year low noise season. "Always look on the bright side of life."

[MarsG76]

19 hours ago, wimvb said:

We've had a fair amount of snow. But at 2 C, and rain, most of it has melted by now. We consider this time of year low noise season. "Always look on the bright side of life."

True, wouldn't need cooling... the season where DSLR images look CCDish...

[wimvb]

8 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

True, wouldn't need cooling... the season where DSLR images look CCDish...

Certainly wouldn't need it. But if you have it, why not use it? Last few times, I imaged at -30 C. 

Cmos have other dark signal and dark noise characteristics than ccd. And only the very newest sensors have a dark current that matches ccd. Cooling helps to get consistent results.