Celestial aquarium in 15 panels.

[ollypenrice]

Using our existing images of the Shark and the Angler Fish, Paul Kummer shot the panels needed to make this widefiled mosaic (15 in all.)  He also did the pre-processing and mosaic combination in APP. The post processing is mine, here. I have to say 'Hats off' to Paul because the linear mosaic was flawlesss, the best I've ever worked with. Even the Equalize adjustment in Photoshop revealed no anomalies whatever. For the first time since I've had it, StarXterminator wasn't effective so I had to include the stars in the stretches. One early stretch was done through a layer mask made of an equalized copy. There is no noise reduction in this rendition.

The streak of supernova remnant at the bottom of the image hardly showed in a standard stretch but the signal was there. Likewise the OIII and Ha for the small planetary. This is purely an OSC image with no narrowband filtration so the problem was simply one of isolating the NB signal contained in the colour. I was amazed by how strong the Ha turned out to be because I know this SNR from a run in Ha some years ago. I didn't use it here because its FOV wasn't wide enough.

RASA 8/ASI2600 OSC/Avalon linear. Remote for Paul, a few metres away for me.

Olly

 

 

 

[MartinB]

What a stunning image, something in which to immerse yourself.  The red streak of Ha is so intriguing.  Fantastic work.  Well done both of you.

Re starXterminator problem, perhaps you should let Russ Croman know about the problem so he can feed the AI

[gorann]

That is a great image and a excellent choise of sky for a mosaic Olly! So far I have only been picking pieces of it with my RASAs. Indeed I aimed at the two creatures at the bottom two nights ago. So it is great to see it all together, although it makes me wonder what is it outside the frame to right of them that make them all rush away😱.

Yes, this scope - camera combo is surprisingly good at picking up Ha without any filter.

 

[tomato]

Wonderful image. It’s intriguing (to me) how the dust and voids seem to follow an even distribution, i.e. you don’t get a big area of sky completely covered in dust, then a big clear patch, but rather channels of each. I dare say there is a sound cosmological explanation for it which I have failed to pick up.

[Fegato]

17 minutes ago, gorann said:

That is a great image and a excellent choise of sky for a mosaic Olly! So far I have only been picking pieces of it with my RASAs. Indeed I aimed at the two creatures at the bottom two nights ago. So it is great to see it all together, although it makes me wonder what is it outside the frame to right of them that make them all rush away😱.

Yes, this scope - camera combo is surprisingly good at picking up Ha without any filter.

 

Ha ha - yes something is frightening everything in this part of the sky!  And coincidentally - I shot the two at the top a couple of nights ago! (as yet un-processed).  Perhaps we could combine to produce our own mosaic?!

But, more to the point - beautiful image Olly!

[ollypenrice]

27 minutes ago, tomato said:

Wonderful image. It’s intriguing (to me) how the dust and voids seem to follow an even distribution, i.e. you don’t get a big area of sky completely covered in dust, then a big clear patch, but rather channels of each. I dare say there is a sound cosmological explanation for it which I have failed to pick up.

I wonder about this as well. Perhaps the dark (void?) patches are created as stellar winds or shock fronts collect and compress the gas into tight clumps which we see as the dusty nebulae. The region within the arcs of the Veil is notably transparent with a high star count because that volume has been swept clear by the expanding shock front.

39 minutes ago, gorann said:

That is a great image and a excellent choise of sky for a mosaic Olly! So far I have only been picking pieces of it with my RASAs. Indeed I aimed at the two creatures at the bottom two nights ago. So it is great to see it all together, although it makes me wonder what is it outside the frame to right of them that make them all rush away😱.

Yes, this scope - camera combo is surprisingly good at picking up Ha without any filter.

 

Yes, the sea creatures do seem to be fleeing radially from a point on the right.  However, the real movement has to be in the opposite direction since the 'head' ends of the fish are surely being swept by winds flowing left to right. All very curious.

Olly

Edited August 31, 2022 by ollypenrice

[The Admiral]

An amazing image for sure. I never cease to be amazed at what actually lurks up there! The very wide field is an ideal format for displaying this material.

Ian

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Absolutely gorgeous! These RASAs almost seem like they have - to borrow a term from the auto industry - forced induction (for photons)

Maybe I should get one - how much do I really need two kidneys I wonder... 🤔

[Ratlet]

37 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Absolutely gorgeous! These RASAs almost seem like they have - to borrow a term from the auto industry - forced induction (for photons)

Maybe I should get one - how much do I really need two kidneys I wonder... 🤔

The good news is that if you sell the one kidney for the RASA you won't be able to afford to drink so it works fine 🤣

[Richard_]

Wonderful picture Olly and Paul! It looks like a lot of coordination and planning went into this, and the image looks nice and "flat" with no signs of curvature! 

I really like this celestial aquarium. Great work guys!

[rrb24]

Absolutely superb image 👍

Roberto

[scotty38]

Just brilliant!

[peter shah]

Thats a massive FOV Olly three or four images for the price of one, an absolute bargain!!....Really nice nice job on that. I love that vein of Hydrogen.

[carastro]

Wow, absolute Wow!!!  

When I saw the title I knew this must be Olly's image of this area as we had a conversation once before when he called this area an Aquarium.  I also had to leap onto my laptop as I wanted to see it in it's full glory and what I wanted to say would be far too long for a smartphone.

Absolutely stunning work from both of you.   

I was looking at my images of the Shark and the Anglerfish only recently wondering whether I could make a mosaic of them but alas there is a gap and since my visits to dark skies are few and far between I doubt I will get a chance. 

Thank you for this wonderful  inspiring image.

Carole  

[mftoet]

That’s a great field of view with interesting sea life. When seeing images like this I always think back 25 years ago, when I started astrophotography using an analogue Olympus OM-1 SLR. In those days we couldn’t imagine this would become in reach of amateur astronomers. Quite a few objects we photograph today with our low noise digital cameras weren’t known by amateurs back then. In fact, we now photograph and discover (for instance by Nicolas Outters and Marcel Drechsler) objects that weren’t even known by professionals. 

[ollypenrice]

32 minutes ago, mftoet said:

That’s a great field of view with interesting sea life. When seeing images like this I always think back 25 years ago, when I started astrophotography using an analogue Olympus OM-1 SLR. In those days we couldn’t imagine this would become in reach of amateur astronomers. Quite a few objects we photograph today with our low noise digital cameras weren’t known by amateurs back then. In fact, we now photograph and discover (for instance by Nicolas Outters and Marcel Drechsler) objects that weren’t even known by professionals. 

Yes, we now have no trouble photographing what is really little more than glorified background sky. By the way, your recent image showing parts of ours above in more detail is stunning.

Olly

[wimvb]

Excellent mosaic! 

On 31/08/2022 at 16:25, ollypenrice said:

Yes, the sea creatures do seem to be fleeing radially from a point on the right.  However, the real movement has to be in the opposite direction since the 'head' ends of the fish are surely being swept by winds flowing left to right. All very curious.

You know what this means, right? More panels are needed. 😁

[assouptro]

This reminds me of a of a scene from a movie I think it's maybe raiders of the lost ark, or maybe Harry Potter? 

It's like ethereal spirits dashing across space and time! 

Amazing!

I am blown away at what is achievable these days from "amateur" astronomers from ground based rigs!

Stunning!, just stunning!

Thanks for sharing and raising the bar!

Bryan