The Iris nebula floating in the interstellar dust - 26h

[alexbb]

I believe this is my longest project shot only under Bortle 1-2 skies.

I shot for this image ~11h of data with a Canon 6D through and Esprit 80, 12.5h of luminance with an ASI1600 through the Skywatcher 72ED and some 1h x RGB with the mono + 72ED.

5h were from the last year, the others from the last month. The 6D and the Esprit 80 covered the whole area, but the 72ED and the smaller mono sensor only covered a part of it. Therefore, I had to plan a 2x2 mosaic and I had some tough times in aligning the scopes and realigning them after the meridian flip. Not everything went as planned so I had for one panel to travel once again to add more data. 2 mono panels have 2h of exposure, the other 2 have 3h. In the middle I added the LRGB data I had from last year.

Processing was tough too, I spent a lot of time and I believe there's plenty of room for improvement, but I'm pretty satisfied with this version. Not too aggressive noise reduction, stars are still there, I can call it final.

In the image are present the ghost nebula and the Gyulbudaghian's variable nebula too.

And a full resolution link to astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/n8y8sz/

 

Now off and out to real life

Thanks for watching!

Alex

Edited September 29, 2019 by alexbb

[Allinthehead]

The time spent under good skies has really paid off. Fabulous 

[AbsolutelyN]

Outstanding and inspirational! 

[alexbb]

Thank you, Richard, Tristan!

The time spent collecting the data is maybe less than the time spent processing.

This image required a different type of processing compared to what I am used to.

Now that I see it on another screen, it might accept easily a little improvement, but not sure if I can apply it on the final image or I should need to start from an intermediate step. Maybe after a while...

[tooth_dr]

Delicate and beautifully processed.  What an image. 

[alexbb]

4 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Delicate and beautifully processed.  What an image. 

Thank you, Adam! Glad you like it

[steppenwolf]

Wow, that's a cracker - so much lovely dust! Beautifully done.

[Adam J]

On 29/09/2019 at 12:59, alexbb said:

I believe this is my longest project shot only under Bortle 1-2 skies.

I shot for this image ~11h of data with a Canon 6D through and Esprit 80, 12.5h of luminance with an ASI1600 through the Skywatcher 72ED and some 1h x RGB with the mono + 72ED.

5h were from the last year, the others from the last month. The 6D and the Esprit 80 covered the whole area, but the 72ED and the smaller mono sensor only covered a part of it. Therefore, I had to plan a 2x2 mosaic and I had some tough times in aligning the scopes and realigning them after the meridian flip. Not everything went as planned so I had for one panel to travel once again to add more data. 2 mono panels have 2h of exposure, the other 2 have 3h. In the middle I added the LRGB data I had from last year.

Processing was tough too, I spent a lot of time and I believe there's plenty of room for improvement, but I'm pretty satisfied with this version. Not too aggressive noise reduction, stars are still there, I can call it final.

In the image are present the ghost nebula and the Gyulbudaghian's variable nebula too.

And a full resolution link to astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/n8y8sz/

 

Now off and out to real life

Thanks for watching!

Alex

Awesome, what i would not give to have such dark sky.

Adam

[astro mick]

One of the nicest images I have seen.

Well done Alex.

Mick.

[x6gas]

Stunning.

[carastro]

That's beautiful, excellent work and dedication.

Carole 

[alexbb]

On 01/10/2019 at 00:01, steppenwolf said:

Wow, that's a cracker - so much lovely dust! Beautifully done.

On 01/10/2019 at 17:59, astro mick said:

One of the nicest images I have seen.

Well done Alex.

Mick.

21 hours ago, x6gas said:

Stunning.

21 hours ago, carastro said:

That's beautiful, excellent work and dedication.

Carole 

Thank you all so much!

On 01/10/2019 at 02:57, Adam J said:

Awesome, what i would not give to have such dark sky.

Adam

Thanks! It hasn't been so easy to get to some locations. Besides the required heavy gear, I doubled many of the items just to be sure I don't forget something. But, indeed, dark skies are not that far away. 2-3 or 5 hours long were the trips to get to those places.

[Brian Maurer]

OMG that is an incredible image!

[Ouroboros]

12 hours ago, alexbb said:

Thank you all so much!

Thanks! It hasn't been so easy to get to some locations. Besides the required heavy gear, I doubled many of the items just to be sure I don't forget something. But, indeed, dark skies are not that far away. 2-3 or 5 hours long were the trips to get to those places.

2-3 or 5 hours to get there? Phew? That's dedication. Yours is a stupendous image of the sort of quality we normally only see from people with permenant set ups. The processing must have been interesting! 🙂 

[alexbb]

On 03/10/2019 at 08:42, Brian Maurer said:

OMG that is an incredible image!

On 03/10/2019 at 10:03, Ouroboros said:

2-3 or 5 hours to get there? Phew? That's dedication. Yours is a stupendous image of the sort of quality we normally only see from people with permenant set ups. The processing must have been interesting! 🙂 

Thank you!

It was more challenging than I expected. To capture, but even more to process.

[alan potts]

Great shot there and something I did last week with a pitiful 2 hours on a longer F/L scope, we do get some great dark shies down this way.

Alan

[alexbb]

21 hours ago, alan potts said:

Great shot there and something I did last week with a pitiful 2 hours on a longer F/L scope, we do get some great dark shies down this way.

Alan

Thank you, Alan!

Indeed, there are a few dark skies around us. Some of my astrofriends went from Bucharest to somewhere in Bulgaria last week to another astrofriend.
I'm from the western part of Romania so I travel to other places than they do, but my girlfriend's parents live at a village ~2.5h drive and the sky is Bortle 2 there. Good enough for imaging and being able to get inside after everything is set up is a big advantage