Vale of Tears

Yay for new gear!  Don't you just love it when you spend hard earned cash for new gear and it all works wonderfully right out of the box?  So do I.

Wonder if I'll ever experience that.

Anyone who expects to solve problems by throwing around kilo-dollars has yet to experience all that astrophotography has to offer.  I have a story to tell - but it will be another time.  Let's just say I've survived -

"gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle" (mourning and weeping in the valley of tears)*

-my personal Vale of Tears with pretty much all new gear and have come out the other side with a nice deep image of the Veil Nebula (I'm feeling overproud with the use of the homophone).

I've set aside my lovely Canon lenses for a Takahashi FSQ-85 (the baby-Q) and a updated QSI683 camera.  Takahashi optics are the bees-knees but their mechanicals (read focuser) suck.  But as I just said I'll save that tale of woe for another day.  Even with the focal reducer bringing it to a focal length of 337mm its like looking through a soda straw to "us" camera lens folk.  How are you supposed to image anything through these refractor "pea-shooters" anyway?  Now, now,  I'm not complaining ... just saying its an all new way to "frame" the universe.  It'll take some getting used to.  And lots of mosaics ....

After I solved some of the hinted at "mechanicals" I decided on the Veil as a nice first object.  I already had the Ha and OIII filters so all was good there.  Framing experiments soon revealed that I'd have to shoot *two* frames to get the whole thing (is that my beloved 200mm EF-L lens chortling from the camera bag?)  So that just doubled the length of the project.  Next I made some terrible blunders errors in judgement like shooting the OIII all binned 2x2 and the Ha all 1x1.  That made for some hassles latter during processing.  I spread taking the data over some 20 different nights this summer/fall - not all nights were completely devoted to this project but most were.  And yes, the assorted screw-ups had me tossing full nights of data - but dang ... 20 nights!  That's some perseverance full on scratchy hair-shirt monkery!

Veil Nebula in Ha and O(III) 

All-in-all some 40+ hours exposure time.  Mostly in Ha and O(III) but also some RGB exposure for star color.

I know "conventional" bi-color Ha/OIII are red/teal.  I'm sorry but I don't like "teal" and while I know the O(III) line at 501nm is "teal" it's my data and I can make it any color I want.  I decided for blue-ish purple.  An imaging buddy suggested it looks like minerals under short-wave UV.  I like it!  Later I might come back and make it forest green/orange just to be ornery.

I wanted to control the brightest parts of the nebula (near 52 Cygni and also the "eastern" Veil) better than I did but what I really wanted was to bring up the super faint arcs and tendrils on the periphery.  I'm pretty pleased with that.

So, finally another image.  Hopefully it won't take another 6 months for the next!

* from the hymn "Salve Regina".  And no,  I'm not Catholic - it's just that the latin makes me feel smarter.


Bi-color Veil

FSQ-85
QSI683, -25C
Astrodon Ha (3A), OIII (3A), RGB filters
RGB (15x2min) x2 frames bin1x1 3hrs total
Eastern Veil Frame Ha (36x15min) bin 1x1, OIII (30x15min) bin 2x2  16.5hrs total
Western Veil Frame Ha(50x15min) bin 1x1, OIII (46x15min) bin 2x2  24hrs total
AP900 Mount
Image Capture with Sequence Generator Pro
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Taken at:  Bumpass Hell, Mt Lassen, California
                 South San Jose, California
                 Montebello Open Space Preserve, California
                 Lake San Antonio, California
Taken on: July 19,20
                August 11,15,16,18,22,24,26,27,31
                September 5,6,7,8
                October 2,3,4,5,6

Butterfly, Crescent, and Bubble

Here is my first go at a bicolor image.  It is the same field as the previous post ... I wanted both the Butterfly and the Crescent nebulas (Cygnus) in the same field.  Oh ... and this time I didn't forget my narrowband filters. Don't give me any grief about not posting this image for 7 months.  Life happens.

I chose to experiment with a more "orange" palette.  I'm sure with some more work I could figure out how to make the OIII regions (notable around the Crescent) more obvious.  Next time.

Butterfly and Crescent and ...

Now if you blow up the part of the image next to the crescent (200%) one can just barely see the Soap Bubble Nebula.   In the red box.  Arrow pointing at it.  I'll give you a moment.

See it?  Faint little guy.  It is notable since it was discovered by a amateur astrophotographer in 2007.  Now that we know where to look anybody can image it though I thought it was pretty neat to pull it out with a lil ol' 200mm Canon lens.  

... Soap Bubble

Butterfly, Crescent, and Bubble

Taken at Lake San Antonio, CA  Sept. 12-14, 2012
QSI583, Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L
Ha (3nm): 24x10min bin 1x1 @f/2.8
OIII (3nm): 24x10min bin2x2 @f/2.8
Total exposure time 8hrs
AP900 Mount
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Intermediate View

The Lassen trip resulted in one CCD image - the area around Sadr, the "center" star of the northern cross.  I knew before I started that this wouldn't be the finished product (are astro images ever truly "finished"?).  You see I forgot the wheel with my narrowband filters at home. So I wasn't able to shoot any Ha (Hydrogen alpha) which would have really made these dust clouds pop.  So I imaged with Luminance and Red, Blue, Green filters only.  At least I have a head start on the color channels for the next dark moon cycle.

In a couple weeks I'll be on another multiday dark sky outing when I can really do this field some justice.  Stay tuned!



Intermediate Image

Taken at Lassen National Park, CA  August 17-19, 2012
QSI583, Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L
Luminance: 12x5min bin 1x1 @f/2.8 & 12x5min bin 1x1 @f/4  2hrs total
Red:  12x5min Green: 1 2x5min  Blue: 12x5min  all bin 2x2
Total exposure time 5hrs
AP900 Mount
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

A Different Look at North America

I now have more images than I have time to process.  I'm working my way back to finally finish some earlier images that were left to the wayside.  Blame it on my eagerness to use the new QSI camera.  Oh, that and learning a new workflow now that I have to process each color channel separately.  There is always something to keep this imaging pursuit from becoming easy.  But hey ... I *can* handle a monochrome image without too many problems.

This was taken back in the spring.  The goal of the evening was to take a LRGB widefield of the M81/M82 region (which I haven't finished processing either).  After shooting those, there was still some time before dawn and I noticed that Cygnus - one of our summer friends - was rising in the east.  What a great opportunity to try out the new Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) filter on the North American nebula!  I imaged well past astronomical twilight.  With the very narrow (3A) filter it didn't make any difference.  Very cool.  Now I too will be able to use the ubiquitous disclaimer ... "taken under the full moon in my light polluted backyard".  But this was taken at Fremont Peak State Park which is one of the better dark sites easily accessible from the south San Francisco bay area.

I decided to present the image rotated sideways from convention.  I think it highlights those wonderful dark nebula clouds.  At least they seem more obvious to me when I'm not so focused on making those ionized hydrogen clouds into a continent.

The dark complex separating the North American and Pelican nebulas (where the Gulf of Mexico should be) looks to me like a frog jumping into a pond.  The obscuring dust really seems to stand out in front of the nebula.

Other patterns emerge too (the head of a golden retriever in the "pacific", a pontificating elephant in the center, others?) - much more obvious to me than the "Pelican" ever was (the Pelican is the common name given to the nebula just off the coast of "Florida").  Maybe we should look at our night sky friends in new orientations and perhaps see details we otherwise miss.

Sideways North America

Taken at Fremont Peak State Park, CA  April 30, 2011
QSI583, Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L @ f/4
Astrodon Ha (3A) filter
19 x 300sec exposures (95min total)
AP900 Mount
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Learning from the Sisters

As you can tell from my previous posts I've been spending a lot of time learning the basic fundamentals of PixInsight.  Using the Pleiades data that I gathered in the October new moon cycle, I've come to the conclusion that the Seven Sisters are an ideal training ground for astroimage processing.  Nice color, detailed nebulosity without being overly tricky (ala M42), some star color, and brightness variations to throw a little challenge into the mix.  A zillion amateur and professional images available on the net are also a help.  In other words a little bit of everything and nothing too difficult.

The fact that there is a detailed processing example on the PixInsight website helped a bit too.  Here is my current, um, version.  As always, click to flickr.

Encouraged by my early progress (see a couple posts back) I subsequently languished in a discouraging cycle of dead ends and restarts.  Trying more sophisticated tools against my image lead to worse results.  I finally discovered the NoiseEvaluation script and found that I was inexorably raising the noise floor as I processed deeper.  Even though I was keeping the data linear for as long as possible things just plain got noisier.  My tendency was to overstretch and otherwise use too aggressive settings and got to a place where even the sophisticated noise reduction tools in PI couldn't compensate.

Eventually I tackled learning how to do all the calibration processing in PI as well.  This is an area where PI does need some workflow streamlining - not for the faint of heart.  Nebulosity is much much easier.  But the tools in PI are powerful.  After I plowed through it I was able to get my subs to about 5-8x lower sigma SNR.  Pretty cool.  So now I was able to start post-processing with more headroom.

And well, I did only have an hour worth of exposure time.  I really shouldn't expect so much.  Two minute subs too.  But I think it is a very worthwhile learning experience to work with the same data set over and over to see just how much you can squeeze out of the noise.  Experiment often. Reprocess much. You will learn a lot which you can bring to bear on your subsequent images.

I have about 4 or 5 other image sets waiting to be processed but I've patiently spent hours and hours of time with the Seven Sisters while I learn PixInsight fundamentals.  Oh so pretty and alluring they are.  Not entirely painful company!

Pleiades

Taken at Lake San Antonio, CA  October 8, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), Astrotech AT80LE, 480mm  f5
Astrophysics AP900 mount
Guiding: SSAG/50mm Orion finder, PhD
30 120sec exposures @ ISO1600
94 darks
14 flats (1sec ISO 100
128 bias frames
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Lost in the Clouds

Well I pretty much buried M11 (Wild Duck cluster) in the starcloud. It's flying around in there towards the center of the frame. Yes, there.  The white splotch in the center.

I took 71x1min of data which yes, might have been over doing it a bit.  Processed to stretch the contrast between the the starcloud and Barnard's little dark nebulas. Along the way the Wild Duck kinda got lost in the fog. Oh well.

Scutum Starcloud

I've stared at this image for quite some time now and as much as I try to make myself like it ... I just don't. All the standard imager excuses apply (focus soft, tracking could have been better, star bloat, blah blah blah) but that isn't it.  Not really.

I've noticed that I develop an affinity for some images ... despite various flaws. Others are like shirts kept in the closet and rarely worn. Not the garish colored ones or those that "must have shrunk in the wash".   I mean the ones with nothing wrong per se ... just something not quite right and they are passed over again and again.

I showed this image to a friend and his jaw dropped. "You mean that is in the Milky Way? That golden carpet is, like, stars? Every dot? And what is that way cool dark stuff?  Your joking ... really?  That's mind blowing."  When I looked at it through his eyes I started to appreciate it more and more.  I still don't like it much but it sure made a huge difference to see the wonder on my friends face.

Maybe there is a shirt or two in my closet that deserves another chance.

Scutum Starcloud

Taken at Montebello Open Space Preserve, CA Sept. 4, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), 100mm EF-L @ f3.5
Astrotrac Travel System mount
Imaging temperature: 65F ambient, 29C-33C in-camera sensor temp
71 60sec exposures @ ISO1600
64 darks (sensor temps 29-33C to match imaging temp range)
21 flats (1/5sec ISO 100) 21 flatdarks
pre-processed and stacked in Nebulosity
post-processed in PS4

The First is Last

This is the last of the images from our 2010 trip to New Mexico.  I just realized that this picture of the southern Milky Way ...

[south from this latitude anyway - would be amazing to see this at the zenith! note to self, must travel with gear south of the equator]

... was the very first of the trip way back on August 3rd.  I remember being so excited to finally have a break in the monsoon storms.  I waited about 9 days for that.  It was still cloudy that night and I shot 16 60sec exposures before the clouds came charging through.  It was first light for the 100mm EF-L lens - I hadn't even taken a terrestrial shot with it yet.  Still had that, ahhhh, new lens smell.

Old Friends.  click to flickr

Only 16min of data but it probably would have taken me an hour to pull out this signal from the skyglow back home.

There is the Trifid and Lagoon floating in the shoals of their inky pool.  The globular cluster M28 off to the left looking almost star-like in this wide field.  Thousands of stars masquerading as one.  The open cluster M23 sparkling jewel like, just peeking into the frame in the upper right.  The comfort of old friends revisited. 

Taking a picture of this area is like photographing Half Dome in Yosemite - standing next to hundreds of tourists all pointing their cameras at the amazing vista. One of the most photographed areas of the sky.  Iconic. You have seen hundred of pictures.  You have seen it dozens of times with your own eyes.  Yet you are drawn to take yet another picture as a keepsake of this particular meeting.  You almost have to.

In the end 3 partial nights dodging clouds and moving from object to object.  I had one perfect night when I snagged an hour each of M33 and M32 before the moon rose.  Six images.  Hours and hours of processing images late into the night after returning home.  Simply perfect.

But now I'm out of data.  Must. Get. More.   Hmmm,   It's been about a month.  Dark moon cycle.  Hey Marek ... wanna go to Montebello tonight and shoot some stars?  I'm in!

Southern Milky Way
Taken at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico August 3rd, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), 100mm EF-L @ f3.2
Astrotrac Travel System mount
Imaging temperature range: 60-62F
16 60sec exposures @ ISO3200
50 darks, 20 flats (1/5" ISO 100) 20 flatdarks
pre-processed and stacked in Nebulosity
post-processed in PS4

Pale Blue Dot

I processed another image last night.  This morning I showed it to my 6 year old daughter and asked her what she thought of it.  After some thoughtful consideration she said, "it's the Earth".   Kids always see the the obvious.

"Earth"  aka M27, the Dumbell Nebula

When she said that I was reminded of the "Pale Blue Dot" image.  In case you don't remember refresh your memory. Pale Blue Dot.

But of course it isn't the Earth - it is a very wide field image containing the planetary nebula,  M27 "the Dumbell Nebula".   In a planetary nebula, atoms of the expanding gas shell are excited to emit light by a super hot central star.  I explained this to my daughter and she wanted to know how much bigger it is than the Earth.

hmmmm.  Wikipedia to the rescue.  About 1.4 light years radius in the long direction.  Wow.  Bigger than I thought.  Unsure how to explain a light year to a 6 year old ...
{I mean really, I know what a light year is.  I'm just not convinced we humans can meaningfully connect with distances much beyond our direct experience.  I can imagine it.  Just can't feel it. }
    ...  I just settled for "much much bigger than our whole solar system".  You know ... we all know how big that is right?

Unfazed she replied, "so, bigger than a million billion Earths".  She likes that number - million billion.  If she can hold that in her head then maybe I should ask her about the whole light year thing.  Anyway, I quickly answered in the affirmative and scooted us down for breakfast before she prodded longer at the edges of my knowledge.

This isn't a very common image scale to show off M27.  I just wanted to shoot something with my new 100mm EF-L lens and it was cloud free in Velpecula at the time.  In truth I thought it would be larger.  But I kind of like the perspective - especially since I now know it is 2.8 light years across.  Also in the image is a bunch of open clusters and a globular cluster.  Can you find it?

Here is an extreme crop of the frame.  Pretty cool what 100mm focal length projected on a 18M pixel sensor can do.

It didn't occur to me until I was writing this that early observers of these objects coined the term planetary nebula because of their similarity to the planets.  Exactly what my daughter thought.  She would be in good company with Messrs. Messier and Herschel.

Image details:
M27
Taken at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico August 3rd, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), 100mm EF-L @ f3.2
Astrotrac Travel System mount
Imaging temperature range: 60-62F
19 60sec exposures @ ISO3200
50 darks, 30 flats (1/5" ISO 100) 28 flatdarks
pre-processed and stacked in Nebulosity
post-processed in PS4

Broken chips at the bottom of the bag

I'm absolutely craving some potato chips.  Ruffles would be nice but I wouldn't be picky.  We usually don't keep potato chips in the house, and it is well after 12:30am, so I don't think there are any in my immediate future.

I was finishing up this image when I started to think about potato chips and I made a connection (ok, so cut me some slack - it's 12:38am Saturday night after a looooong work week).   I'm down to the crumbs at the bottom of the bag with the remaining images from my trip to New Mexico.  Flawed yet still flavorful.  I won't be embarrassed - I'm reaching in and licking my fingers.

This image of M16, M17 was taken on the very first night I had *any* clear skies.  I took 35 images before I was clouded out.  In the end I only had 18 minutes of usable sub-frames.  It was also the first image with my 100mm lens and I didn't quite hit focus - I was in a rush because of the clouds.  Pity.

I really like these wide fields.  Might have something to do with having done so much visual astronomy over the years where a 1 degree field is HUGE.  This image is like 7x10 degrees.

A forest for the trees kind of thing.  It looks much nicer if you click the image to get the full crop.

A forest full of stars.

 
M16, M17 region
Taken at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu,  New Mexico August 3rd, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), 100mm EF-L @ f3.2
Astrotrac Travel System mount
Imaging temperature range:  61F
18 60sec exposures @ ISO3200
60 darks,  28 flats (1/5" ISO 100) 30 flatdarks
pre-processed and stacked in Nebulosity
post-processed in PS4

One of Four

The image below is one panel of a 4 panel mosaic.   Just wait until you see the full thing.

Well, take a seat because it's gonna be a while.

OK, so the image is one panel of a 1 panel mosaic.  If you have been following along at all you know that my time in New Mexico - as wonderful as it was in every way - only had one perfectly clear night.  That night I imaged M32 and M33 before the moon came to spoil the party.

The other nights, some of which were quite nice thank you, were only partly clear (or partly cloudy as the shift in emphasis might have it).  It was one of these other nights, when it was "oh man-o-man this is gonna be great" clear I decided to shoot a 4-panel mosaic of the Milky Way in Cygnus.  Oh, maybe an hour exposure time each.  Yeah - have to spread it out over two nights.  No problem. 

Forty-three minutes into the first panel ... clouds.  High, thin, and hardly noticeable by eye.  Through the camera lens it is like looking through a window pane smeared with Vaseline.

So, the mosaic idea didn't pan out.  A night or two later I decided against any ambitious plan that would hinge on the necessity of another clear night.  Too big a gamble.  However I did get 43minutes of the first panel ... and at least I did start with a frame that had a "marquee" object - the North American nebula (and Pelican to the right).

Came out OK I think.  Really wrestled with the whole  "what color should I make it" thing.  I settled on a more bluish purplish look.  Blown out, eye-popping reds are just so ... well, red  {you see, I'm just jealous of you narrow-band imagers}.  I didn't want to just make it red because it is supposed to be red (even though it is, kinda sorta).

Color is proving to be more of an issue for me than I thought.  There is science, art, what "sells", and what makes me happy on a given day.  The color palette might be the same or different for all of them.

In deference to my current situation I'm going to let the last option guide me.   

I'll finish that 4-panel someday.  I'd be thrilled if you were still here waiting for it.

North American Nebula
Taken at Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu,  New Mexico August 4th, 2010
Canon T2i (stock), 200mm EF-L @ f2.8
Astrotrac Travel System mount
Imaging temperature range:  58-62F
43 60sec exposures @ ISO3200
60 darks,  21 flats (1/5" ISO 100) 21 flatdarks
pre-processed and stacked in Nebulosity
post-processed in PS4