wingeing Pom

Got out the macro a couple of days back and managed to grab these guys in the garden. Greg

I think they wanted it to be more like APOD to get hits by association Greg

Those of you used to seeing my work may think (at first sight) that I've lost the plot with this one. Got out for the first time in MONTHS last night and did an hour's worth of imaging with the Hyperstar III on the C11. 12 x 4-minute subs of M87. Processed using the Digital Development Filter (instead of a bunch of curves) and I managed to pull out the JET!!!!! May look unimpressive - but I am really happy with this one Greg

The whole of the constellation Canis Minor (effectively Procyon & Gomeisa). Image taken using 2 x Canon 200mm prime lenses with 2 x Trius M26C OSC CCDs. A 2-frame mosaic with each frame approximately 2-hours of 10-minute subs. Greg

Threw together everything I had on M33 and ended up with this. Greg

Yes - that is the DSS image and it is flipped top to bottom, so if you want the same area on one of my images, it's around 7:00 towards the bottom. Greg

V1331 is a young star in Cygnus that sits in the dark nebula LDN981. Image is a total of seven and a half hours of exposure using 15-minute subs. Equipment was the Sky90 array and M26C OSC CCDs. Greg

And here is V1331 as a magnified insert on the main image. Greg

How did I find out I picked the wrong star? Because I decided to take a look at the DSS data and put V1331 in the centre of the field - this is what I got. Greg

I actually picked the wrong star. V1331 is correctly labelled below.

Noel Carboni as you may know works for Adobe so has inside information on Photoshop. The noise reduction packages were tested and optimised on deep-sky images (as well as others) which is why they work so well on DSOs. Greg

I do the same as Ken Greg

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2021/05/the-relativistic-jet-of-m87.html

This is today's (21/05/2021) EPOD - but you saw it on here first Greg

I was at a Council meeting where they were discussing changing all the Sodium street lights over to LED. And the only question that came from one of the local councillors was "Would the new lamp posts be the same colour as the old ones". That was the depth of their understanding. Greg

As someone who is up all night and sees what's going on - the only thing the street lights help at 1 in the morning are the foxes to find their way home. I have never seen anyone walking around at that time. Greg

Oh - and by the way. It was excellent here for a while when the LED street lights were turned off around midnight - then my skies were pretty dark indeed. But what happened? Enough people complained that they didn't feel "safe" and so the Council kept the lights on all night. You just can't bloody win here Greg

I have some very impressive before and after shots too. Before was Sodium street lighting and the sky was a BRIGHT sickly yellow. After, the sky (to the eye) looked much darker and you could see many more stars. Here's the rub. Astroimaging wise the sky is WORSE with the LED lighting than it was with the Sodium lighting!!! Has Parker lost it? How can it possibly be worse when you can see far more stars by eye - and that of course is the argument the local Councillors use when convincing the plebs that LED lighting is so much better for the night sky. Well the problem is that manufacturers made really efficient light pollution filters which took out ALL the Sodium light pollution. You cannot have a filter for the LED lighting as it is broadband. So what you find is that Sodium filtered skies are DARKER to the CCD than the skies where LED street lights are fitted. So even though the LED lights are better shielded, enough bounces back off the ground, trees, whatever to actually make the skies worse than they were before. Greg

Good work!!!! Greg

Thank you Tim - my present the last few years is just to be above ground, that'll do me Greg

Hi Ray, No inversion or colour manipulation, just a bit of careful processing with the DD filter and some curves at the end to reduce the overall brightness a LOT. Greg

Here's the whole image with M87 blown up as an insert. Greg

Minimal processing done Tim. Greg

Playing about on Photoshop 2020 I put together everything I had on the Pelican nebula and then also added DSS data from the same region. Everything stitched together using REGISTAR. Greg

A composite image of the NGC1333 region comprising around 4-hours of Hyperstar III data and DSS2 data downloaded from the Internet. Greg