From the Iris to the Ghost

[gorann]

Or, from NGC7023 to Sh2-136 for those that like proper designations😉

The loss of astro darkness have made me dig a bit deeper in the data I collected this season and try to be creative by mixing data. I discovered that I had a RASA image from August 2020 of these objects to which I could add more RASA data of the Iris from October 2020 and also 5 hours of refractor data of the Ghost and surrounding creatures from 2018. The refractor data was added to about 50%, mainly as lum.

RASA data collected 13-24 August and 21-22 October 2020 using a RASA 8 and ASI2600MC (gain 100). 320 x 2 min.

Refractor data collected 15-16 Spetember 2018 using an Esprit 150 and ASI071MC (gain 200). 60 x 5 min.

Put together in PI and processed in PS and PI.

[symmetal]

Another spectacular image. 😀 I've been trying for a similar view but most clear nights there's been a moon about. 😐

Alan

[gorann]

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

Another spectacular image. 😀 I've been trying for a similar view but most clear nights there's been a moon about. 😐

Alan

Thanks a lot Alan! At least you have nights, they are gone up here at 60° N. Good luck!

[ollypenrice]

Tremendous contrast and colour variety in the dust.  This is an all-time great bit of sky!

What we don't see here are the faint pinks which sometimes appear among the blues around the Iris. I haven't processed the IKI data this time but, on looking through some excellent processing jobs in the thread, I don't see them there either. (I though AnneS had the best hint of them.) I wonder what the IKI camera is and whether this could be a CMOS versus CCD issue. Sara has them bright and clear in this one: https://www.swagastro.com/uploads/2/3/3/7/23377322/iris.jpg

Olly

 

[The Admiral]

2 hours ago, gorann said:

The loss of astro darkness have made me dig a bit deeper in the data I collected this season

And still you keep producing them 😉. Another lovely shot revealing a beautiful, normally invisible, nebscape.

Ian

[gorann]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Tremendous contrast and colour variety in the dust.  This is an all-time great bit of sky!

What we don't see here are the faint pinks which sometimes appear among the blues around the Iris. I haven't processed the IKI data this time but, on looking through some excellent processing jobs in the thread, I don't see them there either. (I though AnneS had the best hint of them.) I wonder what the IKI camera is and whether this could be a CMOS versus CCD issue. Sara has them bright and clear in this one: https://www.swagastro.com/uploads/2/3/3/7/23377322/iris.jpg

Olly

 

Thanks Olly! Unfortunately the faint pinkies must have got lost in processing (although there is a small trace of them). They were there in much of the RASA data I added, as seen in the image below, from which I added data to the current one. I will post an updated version asap where I have recovered that signal!

[gorann]

1 hour ago, The Admiral said:

And still you keep producing them 😉. Another lovely shot revealing a beautiful, normally invisible, nebscape.

Ian

Thanks a lot Ian, much appreciated as always!

[gorann]

Here you go @ollypenrice, the pink is recovered and back! Thanks for pointing it out🙂

Cheers, Göran

[ollypenrice]

12 minutes ago, gorann said:

Here you go @ollypenrice, the pink is recovered and back! Thanks for pointing it out🙂

Cheers, Göran

There you go. Whenever I look at an Iris image I look for this as the benchmark of a  really good one, along with a fully resolved progenitor star. Super.

Olly

[gorann]

2 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

There you go. Whenever I look at an Iris image I look for this as the benchmark of a  really good one, along with a fully resolved progenitor star. Super.

Olly

Thanks Olly! I had it in the back of my mind to protect that pink signal, I remember you have mentioned it before, but I must have, at some step in the processing, been too occupied with other parts of the universe in that image.

[tomato]

Another superbly crafted image Goran.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t large parts of the Cosmos just filthy with dust? I say this because the image reminds me of illustrations of the Black Country, which if you are not familiar with the name, described parts of the West Midlands in the UK characterised by the pollution from the Industrial Revolution. Don’t get me wrong, I’m from that region and am immensely proud of it’s heritage, there is a tenuous connection for me as the clouds of dust and smoke in your stunning image have their origins in Cosmic thermonuclear furnaces.

 

 

[peter shah]

another mega deep image Goran...lovely

[gorann]

17 hours ago, tomato said:

Another superbly crafted image Goran.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t large parts of the Cosmos just filthy with dust? I say this because the image reminds me of illustrations of the Black Country, which if you are not familiar with the name, described parts of the West Midlands in the UK characterised by the pollution from the Industrial Revolution. Don’t get me wrong, I’m from that region and am immensely proud of it’s heritage, there is a tenuous connection for me as the clouds of dust and smoke in your stunning image have their origins in Cosmic thermonuclear furnaces.

 

 

Thanks! Not offended at all! Very interesting. I assume you know why the rich people live in the western parts of many Northeuropean cities, like London and Oslo, while the working class areas are found east of the ciies. If not, it is because of the prevailing winds up here are from west to east. The rich people only wanted the income and not the smoke from the industries. Probably west is to the right in this painting.

[tomato]

I don't think they built really tall chimneys at the start of the Industrial Revolution, so most of the soot and dirt came straight back down, hence the Black Country name. The interstellar murk does create some wonderful opportunities for imaging but I think I prefer my space to be clean. That's why the Fornax Deep Field is my favourite HST image, nothing but the clean vacuum of space between us and the galaxies at the edge of the Universe.

[gorann]

15 hours ago, peter shah said:

another mega deep image Goran...lovely

Thanks a lot Peter, much appreciated!

After I had made the image I realized that I have data I could add to the left of this image, making it wider and including one more nebula (LDN1171). Will post it soon.

[gorann]

12 minutes ago, tomato said:

I don't think they built really tall chimneys at the start of the Industrial Revolution, so most of the soot and dirt came straight back down, hence the Black Country name. The interstellar murk does create some wonderful opportunities for imaging but I think I prefer my space to be clean. That's why the Fornax Deep Field is my favourite HST image, nothing but the clean vacuum of space between us and the galaxies at the edge of the Universe.

Seems slightly boring and difficult to plate solve😉 I don't mind smoke and dust as long as I see it from a distance of a few ly.

Edited May 5, 2021 by gorann

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, gorann said:

Seems slightly boring and difficult to plate solve😉 I don't mind smoke and dust as long as I see it from a distance of a few ly.

Yes, I think that the dust is one of the great things to photograph because this stuff was discovered by photography. Barnard agonized for years over the question of whether his dark patches were windows into truly empty space or patches of opaque matter. His final conclusion was the right one.

I'm also intrigued by it because I'm not very good at photographing it! 

Olly

[peter shah]

On 05/05/2021 at 15:32, ollypenrice said:

 

I'm not very good at photographing it! 

 

I don't believe that for one second Olly 😉

[gorann]

On 05/05/2021 at 16:32, ollypenrice said:

I'm also intrigued by it because I'm not very good at photographing it! 

Olly

Agree with Peter😉

[ollypenrice]

15 hours ago, peter shah said:

I don't believe that for one second Olly 😉

 

11 hours ago, gorann said:

Agree with Peter😉

You're very kind but I never succeed in getting the variety of colour in the dust that some manage to present, nor do I get such interesting illumination of the brighter dusty parts, a kind of backlit illumination.

Olly

[gorann]

27 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

 

You're very kind but I never succeed in getting the variety of colour in the dust that some manage to present, nor do I get such interesting illumination of the brighter dusty parts, a kind of backlit illumination.

Olly

That back lit illumination and colourful dust are something that just appear when I process my RASA images and I did not use to get anything like it with my Esprits. I also see it in other peoples images taken with RASAs, for example this one:

https://www.astrobin.com/421114/

I wonder if it related to the low focal ratio somehow. Also the new low-noise CMOS could play a role. That combination allows more stretch before the noise becomes apparent. During the initial stretches the dust looks more like the dark nebulosity I was used to see in my refractor data. So it may not have much to do with processing skills.

Edited May 7, 2021 by gorann

[tomato]

Just wondering Olly, have you ever had a RASA imaging at Les Granges?

[ollypenrice]

1 minute ago, tomato said:

Just wondering Olly, have you ever had a RASA imaging at Les Granges?

Not yet. 

 

16 minutes ago, gorann said:

That back lit illumination and colourful dust are something that just appear when I process my RASA images and I did not use to get anything like it with my Esprits. I also see it in other peoples images taken with RASAs, for example this one:

https://www.astrobin.com/421114/

I wonder if it related to the low focal ratio somehow. Also the new low-noise CMOS could play a role. That combination allows more stretch before the noise becomes apparent. During the initial stretches the dust looks more like the dark nebulosity I was used to see in my refractor data. So it may not have much to do with processing skills.

I suspect you might be right. We haven't seen him here for a while but Harel Boren was my dusty-object-imaging hero and he has always used fast optics, his own Boren-Simon Powernewt and then an OS Riccardi Honders. But I hesitate to hide behind my kit by way of excuse!

The pandemic has obviously had an effect on my business and I won't be making any decisions till we have some idea of the long-term fallout or likelihood of repetitions, but I wouldn't hesitate simply to replicate your present system here. It would offer our guests high quality results very quickly, even more quickly than our dual Tak106 setup did. We must remember that a dual rig is worth only one F stop over a single, by definition.

I'm glad you recognized what I meant by the 'backlit' dust. It's very impressive.

Olly

[Anne S]

On 04/05/2021 at 16:59, ollypenrice said:

Tremendous contrast and colour variety in the dust.  This is an all-time great bit of sky!

What we don't see here are the faint pinks which sometimes appear among the blues around the Iris. I haven't processed the IKI data this time but, on looking through some excellent processing jobs in the thread, I don't see them there either. (I though AnneS had the best hint of them.) I wonder what the IKI camera is and whether this could be a CMOS versus CCD issue. Sara has them bright and clear in this one: https://www.swagastro.com/uploads/2/3/3/7/23377322/iris.jpg

Olly

 

That explains why you reacted to my version! (My processing is still rather hit and miss)