Cloudynights Forum Imaging Contest

The Bubble Nebula image was a winner in

Chategory of CCD Imaging & Processing, Oct09, Imaging and Sketching Contest Poll in Cloudynights forums

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Each month, 6 images will be chosen from each gallery for the readers of that gallery to vote on. The winner will be placed in a site wide poll for our users to determine which is an overall winner.

- Original image and technical details can be found HERE

The power of Tone Mapping

I like to show an example of Tone Mapping procedure.

I have used this method now about two years with very good results.

A PDF-document of the Tone Mapping can be found HERE.

NOTE! Images have to be perfectly calibrated and gradient free to this method to work.

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The image of Sharpless catalog objects Sh2-223, 224 and 225 shows two extremely dim supernova remnants in a same Three degrees field of view.

Original Post about this image can be found here:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/04/sh2-223-224-and-225-lightened-up.html

As can be seen, in Stacked and Stretched 16h H-alpha image, nearly nothing can be seen under a massive Star field.

In the next image objects can be clearly seen after a Star removal procedure.

If Stars are removed with care, no information from actual target is lost.

If there is some minor details lost during a procedure, they are placed back automaticly, when Stars are placed back to a image.

When Stars are removed, it's easy to use Levels and Curves to boost actual data. There is now no need to worry about bloating Stars.

Since Stars has no relevant color information in a Narrowband image, this method can be used. In a Broad band RGB-image stars has real colors.

The same method can be used for RGB-image as well, if Star information is handeld correctly and replaced back to an image after manipulation.

In this image Stars are placed back. Whan stars are in separate layer over the Starless image, the tranparency can be tweaked carefully to balance visibility of Stars and Objects.

There is several methods to combine Stars and Objects. Stars can be placed as a Lighten mode in PS or by using the Screen mode. The right method depends of imagetype and some testing is needed by a user. Images can be combined by simply stacking them to gether as well.

We can't use H-a as a luminance alone, since it doesn't containe any information from other channels.

the weak signal from S-II and O-III channels is added to a H-a luminance

by a method descripted in a Tone Mapping PDF-document.

The result can be seen in the image abowe.

This image has all the color information from the Starless channels combined to a HST-palette.

I call it to a Color Map.

In this color palette, the idea is balance colors so, that no line is dominatring the color scheme.

Usually the H-a is the strongest channel and HST images tend to have a strong Green cast doe that.

With this method, cahannels are easy to stretch equal, sice there is no stars to worry about.

Very weak signal can be used, but it's allways better to have enough signal to work with.

The final image combined from a Tone Map and Color Map images.

As can be seen in a image, there is no Purple halos around stars, as typically seen in a HST-palette images, doe the strong stretching usually needed for a weaker channels.

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A Tonemapping Procedure diagram.

Download the PDF-document of Tonemapping from HERE.

An Animation of Tonemapping procedure.

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Please, if you have tested this method, send a comment here.

Direct link to a you Tone Mapped image could be nice as well.

I need some feedback to be able to further improve this Work flow.

RGB and Narrowban data Testing

Original RGB-image from 2007 RGB + Natural color narrowband data 50%/50% RGB + HST-narrowband. Mixed 40% as luminance/60%HST + star color 100% from RGB - -

I found an older RGB-image of Elephant's Trunk Nebula, from year 2007.

It's imaged with a UHC-s filter. this filter gives real Star colors. Camera was a single shot QHY8 cooled astro camera.

Exposures for RGB image:

Meade LX200 Gps 12"@f6.3 with a UHC-s filter, 5x900s only.

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I have combined this RGB image to a reacently imaged narrowband data.

Interesting looking combination, softer look and real Star colors.

Elephant's Trunk as a Stereogram

For Parallel Vision For Cross Vision -

NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu. - Original Image with details can be found HERE.

LRGB Elephant's Trunk

I had an older version of the Elephant's Trunk from the year 2007.

It was a H-aRGB image.

This is a combination of the olde and the new images.

It can be called to a H-a, O-III and S-II boosted RGB image.

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula

In Natural colors In HST-palette - This is a detail from the Nebula IC 1396, a beautiful, sculpture like, gas formation. HERE is a wider field of view to same object. - Technical details: Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue. Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data. Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum, H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue. Processing work flow: Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations. Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3. Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65 Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz Image Scale, 0,8 arcseconds/pixel Exposures: H-alpha 17x1200s Binned 1x1 O-III 4x600s, binned 3x3 S-II 6x600s, binned 3x3

Cat's Eye Nebula, Stereogram

Parallel Vision

Cross Vision - -

NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu. - Original Image with details can be found HERE.

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Cat's Eye Stereogram in a HST-palette

Parallel

Cross

Cat's Eye Nebula

In Natural Colors and In HST-palette - -

Uh, this was difficult.

Outer shell is very dim and the core of the Nebula is so bright, balancing that is not an easy task.

I'm happy with this result!

The core of the Cat's Eye Nebula has a small angular diameter, so good seeing is needed to reveal any internal details. I managesd to get some visible by using seceral relatively short exposures, 150s. each, for the core. Seeing varys between 3-2,2 FWHM.

There is a hint of cocentric circles visible around the core, ,they are real phenomen coused by polarized light from the nebula.

Gropped center from the image above.

They are very well seen in Hubble's image of the Cat's Eye Nebula HERE:

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Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue. Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data. Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum, H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue. - Processing work flow: Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations. Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3. Mild wavelets to the core with RegiStax5 - -Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65 Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz Image Scale, 0,8 arcseconds/pixel Exposures: H-alpha 9x1200s Binned 1x1 + 22x300s Binned 1x1 for the Core O-III 12x1200s, binned 1x1 + 15x150s Binned 1x1 for the Core S-II 4x600s, binned 1x1

- Total Exposure time is 10 hours.

The Tulip Nebula as a Stereogram

Parallel, Natural Colors Cross, Natural Colors

Parallel Vision, HST-palette Cross Vision , HST-palette - - -NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu. - Original Image with details can be found HERE.

A new project, The Cat's Eye Nebula

At the same night, when I finalized the Tulip Nebula, I took first frames for my next target.

Cat's Eye nebula is a small, complex structured, Planetary nebula in constellation Drago.

In this first version, only H-alpha light is exposed. There is strong O-III component in its halo.

Doe its small angular size, good seeing is needed to show any internal details in nebula's core.

Seeing was really bad and I just tryed to capture H-a for outer halo.

However, there was some details in bright core as well.

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Details; -Camera, QHY9 - Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65 - Guiding, Lodestar and SXV-AO @ 8Hz - Exposures, 10x600s and 4x1200s with 7nm H-alpha filter.

- image scale is 0.8 arcsecond/pixel

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A "pre Stereogram"

Parallel

Cross

Tulip Nebula Finalized

Last night I got more H-alpha light and O-III and S-II channels.

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Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue. Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data. Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum, H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue.

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Processing work flow: Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations. Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

- Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65 Camera, QHY9

Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz

Exposures: H-alpha 10x1200s Binned 1x1

O-III 6x600s, binned 3x3

S-II 4x600s, binned 3x3

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The name "Tulip" is well deserved.

NGC 6888, Reprocessed

I reprocessed image of NGC 6888.

Colors are now more vivid and details are even more visible.

Original images and imaging details can be found here:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/09/ngc-6888-in-hst-palette.html

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New project, The Tulip Nebula

I have started a new project with a Sh2-101, the Tulip Nebula.

So far, from three nights, I have only four twenty minutes exposures. Weather has been very volatile up here.

I will shoot more H-alpha and other channels for this object later.

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Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue. Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data. Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum, H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue. - Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.

Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65

Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz Exposures: H-alpha 4x1200s Binned 1x1

Color information is taken from much wider fiels image of Tulip Nebula.

Imaging details here:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2008/11/tulip-nebula.html

ph

The Bubble Nbula as a Stereogram

Parallel Vision, HST-palette Cross Vision, HST-palette

Parallel Vision, Natural-palette

Cross Vision, Natural-palette

- NOTE!

This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression.

Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu.

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Original Image with details can be found HERE.

Bubble Nebula finalized

Now I have data for all the channels, H-alpha, S-II and O-III.Even though signal from S-II was very weak it was clearly there, I managed to balance it with stronge channels.

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Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue.

Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data.

Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum,

H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue.

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Processing work flow: Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations. Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3. - Imaeged in three nights between 27.09 - 04-09 2009, seeing varys between 4-2,5 FWHM - Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65 Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz

Exposures:

H-alpha 21x1200s Binned 1x1 = 7h

S-II 10x600s Binned 3x3

O-III 5x600s Binned 3x3

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Here is a total captured Field of View, image size is about 3500 x2300 pixels.

Image turned to be a very high resolution one. Image scale is 0.8 arc seconds/pixel.

Seeing wasn't that good (2,5 FWHM at best) but slightly oversampled image is very good for Deconvolution algorithms. After deconvolution the FWHM was 1.9.

Bubble Nebula in a H-alpha light

I have started again a new imaging project.

Image is exposed 7 hours so far, 21 x 1200s.

The RGB data in color image was imaged in 2007 with a QHY8 camera.

Image is gropped from large image and scaled down about 50%.

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Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.

Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

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Imeged in two nights, seeing varys between 4-2,5 FWHM

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Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65

Camera, QHY9

Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz

NGC 6888 in National Geographic's "Daily Dozen"

My image of the "crescent Nebula", NGC6888, was selected in a "Daily Dozen" of National Geographic Magazine's webpage.

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NOTE.

You can vote the image to be printed (Not just this, butt all)

HERE

This was the selected image. Original post with details can be found HERE.

The Pelican Nebula as a Stereo Pair

Parallel Vision Cross Vision - -

NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu. - Original 2D-image and details, HERE

Parallel Vision

Cross Vision

Pelican Project, Grande finale

Nebula in HST-palette, S-II = Red, H-alpha = Green and O-III = Blue

A Grop from the bigger image

Nebula in natural colors, mixed from narrowband channels.

H-alpha + 20%S-II = Red, O-III = Green and O-III + 15% H-alpha = Blue

Nebula in H-alpha light (Ionized Hydrogen)

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Now I have S-II (Ionized Sulfur) and O-III (Ionized Oxygen) channels, so making fullcolor image is possible

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Camera QHY9, Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65 Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz Filters Baader H-alpha 7nm, 6h, 20 min subs Baader O-III 8,5nm 1h, 10 min. subs binned 3x3 S-II 1h 40, 10 min subs binned 3x3 - Note. a special technique of mine is used to balance weaker channels with Hydrogen alpha. Information about that tech. can be found HERE

Pelican project continues

Last night I was able to capture more lights for the target.

Now there is 18 x 1200s H-alpha filteret light, Six hours.

I place here a small preview gropped from the image.

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Next I'll shoot O-III and S-II channels for the color image,

Weather doesn't look too good now though.

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Camera QHY9,

Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65

Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz

Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm Exposures 18x1200 s.

Pelican Nebula, start of the project

So far, not a very lucky start.

I have spend four nights with this target and the result is only five 20min. frames.

The see is open and it keeps sending clouds of mist night after a night.

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Image is kind of noisy, doe too few light frames, but I'll post it here to wait more to come.

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Camera QHY9, Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65 Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm

Exposures 5x1200 s.

NGC 6888, deconvolution test

A fellow astro imager, Neil Fleming, in Yahoo group "astro_narrowband"

give me an idea about using more deconvolution algorithm to this image.

Thanks a lot Neil!

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After testing several softwares, I found CCDSharp giving me best resul in this case.

( CCDSharp is a freeware from Sbig )

33 iterations of Lucy-Richardson deconvolution.

The Stars came out just fine, so no separate processing for them.

Final result was way more better than I was expecting!

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You can compare those images to a previous ones, HERE in a HST-plalette and HERE in a Natural colors.

Imaging details can be found behind the links too.

Hydroge alpha channel alone

NGC 6888 as a Stereo Pair

A Parallel Vision version A Cross Vision version -

NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu.

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Original 2D-image and details, HERE

NGC 6888 in HST-palette

Last night I got S-II (ionized Sulfur) for the NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula.

Now it was possible to compose a HST version (Hubble Space Telescope palette).

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Camera QHY9,

Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65

Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz

Filters

Baader H-alpha 7nm, 4.5h 20min subs

Baader O-III 8,5nm 2h 40min 20min subs binned 2x2

S-II 1h 5 min subs binned 3x3

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Note. a special technique of mine is used to balance weaker channels with Hydrogen alpha.

Information about that tech. can be found HERE

NGC 6888 in H-alpha and O-III light.

This was hard to process...

I have problems to have images calibrated with Flats, Bias and Darks, so much extra work there to have images balanced.

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O-III, ionized Oxygen, really add forms to this image.

I will shoot S-II, even though there is much that in the Crescent itself.

I'll like to make this image to HST-palette as well.

- Camera QHY9, Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65 Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm

H-alpha 4.5h 20min subs

O-III 2h 40min 20 min subs