MarsG76 Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 Hello astronomers, About a month ago I started to image the Dragon Face nebula region, in accordance with my plan to image more southern sky objects which are rarely imaged by amateurs. This area is just north of the Tarantula nebula on the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, within a thick and dense starry area of the sky. The density of stars can be seen in the image and judged as this was imaged at 2032mm and still the stars are almost like noise where as my images at this focal length, the stars are usually much more spaced apart. Within the 40D FOV there are a number of nebulae within this frame, namely NGC2032, NGC2035 and NGC2040 which make up the Dragons Face. There are also NGC2020 which is he blue swirl top left and NGC2014 is the red veil directly under it. There is also NGC2021 that is bottom center of the frame and a faintly visible NGC2053 which is bottom right frame under and to the back of the "dragon face". This is the first image I captured where I feel like I have reached the limits of my modded DSLR. A couple of weeks ago I posted a quick process of this region after only spending a couple of nights gathering RGB data. I knew that there is much more nebulosity in the area so I spent quite a few of the next clear nights capturing long exposura subs through narrowband filters, hoping that I'll squeeze out a lot of the faint stuff. I was imaging 20 and 30 minute subs in HAlpha and SII, and 15 and 20 minute OIII subs. I ended up with around 30 subs through each filter. I stacked those and processed them all with the RGB data I captured. Comparing the stacked about 37 hours of data to the initial RGB image that was about 8 hours worth of exposure time, yes there is a bit more fainter nebulosity visible, but NOT THAT MUCH MORE???!!! I guess there is a point where the sensitivity of the camera plays a limiting role and capturing more and more subs yields diminishing or negligible benefit results. The total number of subs I stacked were about 162 after throwing out the half dozen or So that were unusable or not good enough quality. Clear skies, y'all. MG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooth_dr Posted January 10, 2018 Share Posted January 10, 2018 I have yet to try out my modded 40d, but as an astro camera it appears to work very well going by your photos. Great job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsG76 Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 Less contrast... I tried to improve the data but all I could really do is add a bit of blue to the blacks and not go so hard on the contrast... After all the area is thick in nebulosity so increasing contrast until most of the space was near black made it look too harsh and over cooked. The other thing that bothers me with the pic is the fact that there are so many stars that it actually looks like noise, but when zooming in on the 10mpix photo it distinctly shows individual stars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsG76 Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 17 hours ago, tooth_dr said: I have yet to try out my modded 40d, but as an astro camera it appears to work very well going by your photos. Great job. Give the 40D a go... it's a good camera... it's definitely more sensitive than my 7D, so I believe that bigger pixels on the sensor do help comparing to newer DSLRs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooth_dr Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 2 minutes ago, MarsG76 said: Give the 40D a go... it's a good camera... it's definitely more sensitive than my 7D, so I believe that bigger pixels on the sensor do help comparing to newer DSLRs. Cheers, going to run it along side the 1000d which I think is the same sensor. The one night I had them both running to test if they were working ok, the 1000d was running at 4deg C and the 40d -4deg C. It was a cold night, so will be interesting to see if it is due to the large body of the 40d or just a glitch in the sensor reading or how it's measured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsG76 Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 2 minutes ago, tooth_dr said: Cheers, going to run it along side the 1000d which I think is the same sensor. The one night I had them both running to test if they were working ok, the 1000d was running at 4deg C and the 40d -4deg C. It was a cold night, so will be interesting to see if it is due to the large body of the 40d or just a glitch in the sensor reading or how it's measured. -4°C??!! Its either cooled, you have some cold ambient temp or its indeed reporting wrong. When imaging my 40D runs at 22-28ish usually, dependent on the outside temperature. The 7D exceeded 40°C but like I said it was less sensitive so I stick to my 40D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooth_dr Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 10 minutes ago, MarsG76 said: -4°C??!! Its either cooled, you have some cold ambient temp or its indeed reporting wrong. When imaging my 40D runs at 22-28ish usually, dependent on the outside temperature. The 7D exceeded 40°C but like I said it was less sensitive so I stick to my 40D. Yeah it was pretty cold that evening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsG76 Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 17 minutes ago, tooth_dr said: Yeah it was pretty cold that evening. At that temperature the 40D would be a beast of a astro imaging camera... There would be heaps less noise and the sensitivity would be doubled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeODay Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 Lovey images. I really like the detail and colours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarsG76 Posted January 12, 2018 Author Share Posted January 12, 2018 2 hours ago, MikeODay said: Lovey images. I really like the detail and colours. Thank you... Nice little fuzzy... looks quite impressive in the eyepiece also on the clearest night only tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StargeezerTim Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 Lovely images! Well done... reads like a labour of love... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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