Today's NASA APOD

[tomato]

If, like me, you are a fan of galaxy imaging, please take a look at today's APOD of M51. I've seen HST images of this galaxy before, but this one is just stunning in it's detail.

The trouble is,  it is so good that it just makes me despair about what I can achieve with my own setup...🙄

Astronomy Picture of the Day (nasa.gov)

 

 

[Paul M]

Nah! I don't like the close crop. 

All the gear and no idea!

[CraigT82]

What slightly annoys me about that image is that it’s been rotated so that the diff spikes form a + rather than an x, which for me is a like a hallmark of Hubble. Not impressed! 

[tomato]

I have now found the source of the original HST data, don’t hold your breath…

[gorann]

Amazing, and I can see your point Steve but Hubble is shortsighted (like me) and where we will beat it every time is in wide field, like with a RASA, and even if we go close up with a SCT or 6" refractor we can chose objects Hubble has not done, and there is no lack of them. So, just stay out of Hubble terriotry, it is in any case rather narrow.

Edited June 13, 2022 by gorann

[Paul M]

11 minutes ago, tomato said:

I have now found the source of the original HST data, don’t hold your breath…

I bet you can't make it look it's been acquired with a 10" Newt on an EQ6... 😁

I could...

[Ratlet]

I love the images where you can see the h-alpha regions in other galaxies.  I can imagine some form of life over there looking at it through a scope and marvelling. Maybe looking at their space telescope images of our regions and wondering about us.

And somewhere across the vastness of space there will be an alien looking at a digital image of their nebula and complaining about the flatness of the image.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Halos present around the brighter stars. You'd have thought they'd have invested in a set of astrodons... 4/10 must try harder

😁

Edited June 13, 2022 by The Lazy Astronomer

[tomato]

Well, I couldn't find the dataset used in the APOD, but did find some 'matching' HaRGB files. Each channel appears to be a 6 panel mosaic and some of the joins are a bit rough. This is a quick zip through PI and AP, it has turned out a lot softer than the APOD.

I found the exercise weirdly intimidating, mindful that I was processing a dataset which is literally out of this world and from a telescope that has produced dozens of iconic astro images.

I won't be giving up the day job.😄

[tomato]

I have just thought, even though the data is in the public domain, I may have infringed some NASA copy right, if so, Mods please remove.

[Aramcheck]

Anyone know what the 'eye' like object is in the upper left of the APOD? I searched on SImbad & found a planetary nebula at about that position (M51 29), but I'm not sure I got the right thing!

 

[fozzybear]

28 minutes ago, tomato said:

I have just thought, even though the data is in the public domain, I may have infringed some NASA copy right, if so, Mods please remove.

Q8: Can I use APOD pictures in my classroom?
A8: For non-commercial fair use, yes. Please note that many APOD images have are copyrighted and so to use them commercially you must gain explicit permission from the copyright owners. Many times, these copyright owners can be found by following the links provided under the APOD image(s).

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by fozzybear
wrong text

[fozzybear]

Isn't SGL a Classroom in theory albeit distant learning also not for profit?

 

[vlaiv]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

I won't be giving up the day job.

In my view, yours is better rendition then the APOD.

Only thing that I object is lack of brightness range. I've seen this in some images lately and I can't really tell what is going on (possibly feature of some widely used PI script).

It is like "cap" has been placed on brightness and maximum allowed value is grey and not white.

Look at this comparison to get the idea of what I'm saying:

Left is your processing converted to grayscale and right is Hubble team processing (most likely of the same data) that we can often see online - again converted to grayscale.

For some unknown reason yours simply stops midway and maximum brightness is left at medium gray level (for that reason image looks rather "flat").

[vlaiv]

39 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

Isn't SGL a Classroom in theory albeit distant learning also not for profit?

 

I'm with you on that one - as far as I'm concerned, purpose of this discussion (and many other discussions on SGL) is to learn and exchange ideas.

[fozzybear]

3 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I'm with you on that one - as far as I'm concerned, purpose of this discussion (and many other discussions on SGL) is to learn and exchange ideas.

i thought i might be out of my depth here thankyou

[tomato]

On the copyright issue, I haven’t published the APOD or indeed used the dataset that was used to create it, and certainly not seeking any commercial gain from my effort.

Vlaiv, you make an interesting observation, I stretched the combined channels in StarTools, APP and PI, and they all gave very different responses. The auto stretch function in StarTools gave a typical wide dynamic range result, I could not set a workable black point in APP (massive change in LH side of the histogram for a minute change in the slider, regardless of what range was set,) and I used the Histogram transformation tool in PI to produce the image I posted. On my screen the core looked blown out, so I adjusted this with the highlights tool in Affinity Photo. I’ll post the StarTools result tomorrow, I’m currently trying to image LBN 576…

[vlaiv]

11 hours ago, tomato said:

On my screen the core looked blown out, so I adjusted this with the highlights tool in Affinity Photo.

This seems to be the issue.

Once you blow up things and clip them - bringing those down wont restore dynamics in those areas due to clipping.

[tomato]

Apologies, much later than promised, but here is the StarTools version.

 

[vlaiv]

2 hours ago, tomato said:

Apologies, much later than promised, but here is the StarTools version.

Although I personally dislike star color and overall hue that StarTools is producing (no such thing as teal stars) - this rendition is very good.

[Rodd]

On 13/06/2022 at 17:17, tomato said:

If, like me, you are a fan of galaxy imaging, please take a look at today's APOD of M51. I've seen HST images of this galaxy before, but this one is just stunning in it's detail.

The trouble is,  it is so good that it just makes me despair about what I can achieve with my own setup...🙄

Astronomy Picture of the Day (nasa.gov)

 

 

I don’t know.  There is hope.  Here is M51 taken with slowly 5” scope from Bortle 6.  We can’t equal Hubble, of course.  But we can have moral victories!!!