Rho Ophiuchi from Hawaii

[Spongey]

This is easily the biggest project I've ever undertaken in my few years of (very) amateur astrophotography!

This image is a 10 panel panorama of the Rho Ophiuchi region taken from ~2/3rds of the way up Mauna Loa Observatory road, Hawaii.

I carried all my gear around the whole world with me but it was definitely worth it!

Aquisition:

Canon 6D (unmodified) on an iOptron Skytracker Pro

Tamron 100-400mm @ 135mm

f/4.5

125x 90s light frames - 3 hours and 7.5 minutes integration time

26x bias frames

30x 90s dark frames

25x flat frames

Preprocessing (Pixinsight):

Stack bias frames + superbias

Calibrate + stack dark frames

Calibrate + stack flat frames

Calibrate light frames

Cosmetic correction

Register light frames

Subframe Selector

Stack light frames

Preprocessing (AstroPixelProcessor):

Mosaic registration and integration (this took a long time)

Processing (Pixinsight):

DBE (x2)

Background neutralisation

Colour calibration

SCNR - green

Multiscale Linear Transform - Luminance

Multiscale Linear Transform - Chrominance

Histogram transformation based on a modified STF to go non-linear

Morphological Transformation for star reduction

Multiple iterations of masked curves transformation

Processing (Lightroom):

Final touches - mainly local contrast and saturation adjustments

Export @50% resolution for web posting

 

This image is definitely my favourite that I have ever done, and I'm pretty impressed at what is achievable with such a small star tracker, DSLR and lens combo! Can't wait to see what I can do with a proper mount and telescope in the years to come (although maybe not under such good skies)!

As always, constructive criticism is appreciated  

[vlaiv]

No criticism on my part - I think image is as good as it gets.

[CraigT82]

Stunning! No other word for it really.  Rho Oph is probably my favourite thing in the sky.

Well worth the effort, and well worth spending a couple hundred quid getting it properly printed out and put on the wall!

[Spongey]

Just now, CraigT82 said:

Well worth spending a couple hundred quid getting it properly printed out and put on the wall!

Thanks for the kind comments  

How would you suggest getting a shot like this printed? I have had a similar photo printed before on metallic paper and frankly, it looks far too dark in a normal room to fully appreciate! All the detail is there, it just looks very bland under regular light...

[CraigT82]

I use Whitewall, and their ultra hd acrylic prints. Not cheap though. Could be worth getting a small section printed at 6x9 or similar to see  how it looks before going the whole hog

Edited September 26, 2019 by CraigT82

[MartinFransson]

Oh man, that is a beauty! How the heck did you manage to get the framing right for the 10 panels on "just" a Skytracker? 😮

[Spongey]

24 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

I use Whitehall, and their ultra hd acrylic prints.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check them out

19 minutes ago, MartinFransson said:

How the heck did you manage to get the framing right for the 10 panels on "just" a Skytracker?

With difficulty! A lot of the edge data had to be cropped as a result but I'm still pleased with the framing

[kirkster501]

Amazing work, I love the colours and control of the stars.

[glowingturnip]

very nice, and I like the composition - even if you did plonk the main subject dead-centre 😉.  Those trails of dust coming from it make it look like a jellyfish on a mission.

Agree re WhiteWall, I did an HD metal print from them and it's stunning - does come out darker than on your screen though, so you have to stretch it a bit more than you normally would

[eshy76]

Amazing - congratulations! Rho reaching out to the Milky Way disc is one of the best things in the sky in my view. Love it!