Rho Ophiuchi mosaic from SPSP

[Phil Hart]

this is my first attempt at pulling together my widefield work from SPSP. there are just a couple of spots that may need a tweak if they are mosaic issues, but i'm reluctant to start hacking away with masks in photoshop until i'm certain they're not supposed to be there:

http://philhart.com/gallery/Astrophotography/Nebulae/RhoOphMosaic_rz.jpg.html

click again for larger size (1500 px). the full size image on my PC is 8500 pixels wide.. Photoshop has been slow today ;)

with five+ hours on four panels, this is now the longest total exposure i've put into a final image.. 21.4 hours and that's after throwing away a few more hours shot at lower altitudes. not bad for a portable setup.. but mainly thanks to (almost) four clear nights in a row!

happy to hear if you think you can spot the joins in the mosaic. taken at the same time at SPSP i also have a mosaic with QHY9 and scope of the central region which i haven't looked at yet..

Phil


oh.. and my Drupal website has decided to throw in some PHP errors as well (but you can still get the image).. :help:

[Paul Haese]

Looks very nice Phil. The only join I can see is on the lower left amongst the nebulosity.

[TrevorW]

Very nice indeed

[RB]

Yes a lovely mosaic Phil, wow, mammoth amount of hours.
I too can only see one join in the left panel.

Well done.

[Phil Hart]

ah yes.. i'd missed that one but it's obvious now! i've been worrying too much about the join to the right of Antares.. top edge and bottom edge have some colour transitions that don't look quite right to me..

[h0ughy]

First thing is wish to say is what an absolutely awesome image project, i love the colour of this part of the sky and the details. It is a wonderful image.

I can see all 3 joins, going from left to right, the dust cloud has a different colours at the bottom. the second join through rho area is just noticeable and pretty good. the third join to the right of antares for some reason has severe colour variation at the join, either that or it is right on the cusp of the colour variation from blue to yellow. Phil its easy to criticise but man what a wonderful image. You more than have my respect

[gregbradley]

Gorgeous image, really really nice.

Are you going to finish it off? It is screaming for another band of panels along the bottom.

Greg.

[Octane]

Phil,

Oh, my God. That is utterly superb. I am at a loss for words.

This, all, despite being able to see the joins (and associated colour issues) quite easily, but, then, I'm a stickler for detail -- and, the detail is all there -- in the image!

In my opinon, this is, along with Jase's mammoth effort, one of the better images of the Rho Ophiuchii Complex that I've seen. One of the reasons for this is because everyone images this with their mosaics following the tail (and, I'd be inclined to do this, too), but, you've framed it 90-degrees to the norm, and in doing so picked up that seldom-imaged object to the left.

It's images like these which reinforce in my mind why this is the most beautiful part of the entire night sky.

I thought I had done a good job on this with my non-mosaic of this with the 180mm image from 4 years ago, but, I want to do even better and images like yours are just the inspiration.

Well done.

H

[iceman]

That's a stunning image, Phil. Incredible effort well worth it.

[Bassnut]

Ahh, so thats what frantic earnest activity produces :).Although come to think of it, this rig was the one that was left to crank away on its own all night?.

Excellent Phil, smooth sharp and detailed, a huge effort with a DSLR, masterfull colour processing.

One small thing. The stars on the right look a lot brighter and sort of "joined" together (albiet with a lot of zooming in).

[marc4darkskies]

Wow! That's a gorgeous image Phil!! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Cheers, Marcus

[multiweb]

Ha!..been waiting for this one. :) What a shot. Terrific field. I thought the panels were 4 panels in a square. Do you have a higher res shot (>1500px) anywhere online?

[desler]

A very nice image Phil, Don't care if I can see joins, absolutely stunning area of the night sky and beautifully presented. Thanks for the view.



Darren

[strongmanmike]

Lovely image Phil and I agree with Humi the framing is a feature. The mosaic issues are evident but do not detract from the overall scene. I've always loved that hourse head shapped nebulosity.

Great job again, boy David (and any potential assistant) is gunna have a hard time THIS year :thumbsup:...

Mike

[Phil Hart]

The mosaic through the scope is four panels in a square.. that one will take even more work. That's what you saw me working on with the laptop connected to the QHY9.

Will post a higher res version of this one when I've tweaked the processing..

[Moon]

Phil,

I've been looking forward to seeing this one too. Well done - I admire your stamina to collect that amount of data.:thumbsup:

James

[Phil Hart]

Ha! If I had another four nights and 21 hours I’d be tempted to do that, but I might also just double up on the same area to go deeper (and smoother) again!

[multiweb]

Got it now :doh:That was the small rig with the 40D on the side. The other one is the panorama I'm waiting for :) That's gonna knock a few socks off I reckon. :lol:

[rogerg]

Great image! Quite different cropping/field of view to what I normally see. Wonderful colour, detail and clarity.

[Phil Hart]

Yes.. the frantic effort was focussed on the scope and CCD. this widefield rig ran pretty much unsupervised most of the time. that's the only way i could get so many hours in.. quite enjoyable to have this ticking away while i bash my ahead against the issues associated with CCD imaging/guiding etc.



Yes.. I think that's just a result of getting further into the milky way. The processing to pull out the faint stuff is probably overdoing the stars but hard not to without creating other artefacts. Looks a little better perhaps before being resized.



So now you need an EQ6 and a DSLR?? :lol:;)

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Mike and Humi.

I saw an APOD image of the 'horse head' bit awhile back and have had it on my list since, but it's not exactly bright. Compared to how it looked on the subs, I'm very happy with how clearly it has come up in the end result. It's nice having lots of good data!

When I was planning the mosaic during the week before SPSP, I thought a four frame mosaic to get all of it in was pretty optimistic and figured I would struggle to get enough hours on four panels. But four clear nights later it worked every bit as well as i hoped.

I’m actually surprised with how smoothly the mosaic came together so far just using the auto pano feature in Photoshop (normally use Registar but got stumped by how to get four images side by side from Registar into PS with the layers all separate and aligned). I haven’t made any local corrections yet (haven't even touched individual layer brightness/colour) so I can improve the mosaic seams a lot once I get stuck into it.. just hard to know what colour some parts of the seams ‘should’ be.

[h0ughy]

Phil,
have a look at this http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=1563.0 becasue it is one thing that i will be looking at when i go to Qld Astrofest as i was going to do the same thing (but no where near as good as yours - was going to use a 135mm lens). this method within pixinsight allows you to obtain a seamless intregrated result. (http://pixinsight.com/videos/StarAlignment/Mosaic/en.html)

[Phil Hart]

thanks! will definitely give it a shot. now can you just arrange a few spare weeks so i've got time to learn and process it all! :help::thanx:

[Peter Ward]

Fine effort indeed :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

if i can get a handle on the programme you certainly will blitz it. Have a look at the video tutorials in the other area to fill in some blanks, but i think it will handle your image quite well. I look forward to your results:thumbsup:

[dugnsuz]

Outstanding Phil

[[1ponders]]

Wow. Superb panorama Phil. 3D. The feeling of depth is awesome. Fantastic effort. :clap:

[batema]

I think it looks fantastic and would love to see another panel along the bottom to show even more. Congratulations.

Mark

[RobF]

Wow Phil - was expecting something special after hearing your 40D click away hour upon hour, but this really is something special.

Looking back through the other magnificent pics on your site you've obviously been building up to this level of skill over many years. Really is awe inspiring stuff. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

(and looking forward to seeing more of your Wiruna work as it becomes available :))