wingeing Pom

O.K. so as I am retired and have a bit of time on my hands – I am thinking of running an Astronomy Image of the Day from the New Forest Observatory web site. And yes the idea is to not only be direct competition with that other lot – but to also show a better spread of great images from amateurs across the planet. This is to be amateur (or obsessed individuals) only – so not interested in processed professional data, and photoshop fantasy creations. So long as it is your work and it has ANYTHING to do with the night sky – then it’s good. If anyone out there has any interest in sending in an image to this, let me know so I can gauge whether it’s worth the effort of setting up (or not). Send your image (1024 pixels on the long side) to gregjparker@live.co.uk And unlike that other lot I will need details of how the image was captured, kit subs, cameras scopes, etc. This Image of the Day will be informative as well showing your pretty pictures. Greg

Got today's EPOD (https://epod.usra.edu/) with the BIG California nebula image. Note the link will not work if not viewed today. Greg This link WILL work https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2023/04/california-nebula-in-perseus.html

Greg

29-hours on IC410/IC405 with stars removed. Greg

Not androids Ray - just a computer generated voice at the other end of your speakers. And as for "ain't happening" - this has already been done Greg

Sorry for the heavy topic - BUT - I think you should at least be made aware of this. Skim through, if nothing else, just so you know what COULD be done. http://www.scientificartist.com/2023/02/the-real-dangers-of-ai/ Greg

I got 8 x 20-minute subs on the 200mm Canon lenses last night before the fog rolled in. These went with the 10 x 20-minute subs I managed to get a while back. Here's the result

This is a 5-frame focus-stacked mosaic of Spirogyra in conjugation at a mag of 100x. Each of the 5-frames is a stack of 12 images. Helicon Focus used for the stacking and original image is 10498 x 6871 pixels. Greg

Greg

Just realised why this isn't exactly the visual equivalent of White Noise. If I was to make a visual equivalent - then the dots should also be moving randomly around the screen, they should not be stationary - that's why the effect isn't so good. Back to the drawing board Greg

If you play white noise through a pair of headphones, then after a little while, with a bit of practice - you can pull out any tune you want in full detail. I wondered if it was possible to do the same thing with vision. So here is a random 2-D plot of points. Can you make out any shapes/pictures by staring at this? Greg

I first tried out Russ Croman's Star XTerminator on the JWST image of the Pillars of Creation. So I have no idea why it has taken me several months to think about doing the same on the original Hubble image. Yer 'tiz

And yes - I know it is spelled PLEIADES

Apologies if I've posted this one before, but I've had a quick look below and couldn't see it anywhere. Greg

Without the acquisition data this is all a bit mute. So here it is. This is 30-hours of 40-minute subs taken with the Sky90 array (3 x Sky90 refractors) and 3 x M26C OSC CCDs. Processing was in Photoshop 2023 using Russ Croman's Star XTerminator for the star reduction.

Here is a composite image of the Rosette nebula combining Sky90 and Hyperstar 4 data using RegiStar - a total of around 15-hours exposure time in this one Greg

I reprocessed the Rosette data and came up with this. Greg

This is what you get when you add all the Sky90 data to all the 200mm lens data giving composite images with around 24-hours of total exposure time in each case. Greg

I got another 10 x 20-minute subs on IC410/IC405 last night with the 200mm lenses, ASI 2600MC Pro CMOS cameras and Optolong L-Enhance filters. I added these to the 8 subs taken previously and this is the result. I will try and get another 12 subs giving a total of 10-hours of data and then I'll call it a day on this one. Greg

A freezing cold, but clear, Moonless night last night. I set up the 200mm lenses with the ASI 2600 MC Pro CMOS cameras and Optolong L-Enhance filters on the Calironia nebula. Managed to get 24 x 20-minute subs (I wimped out at midnight, but could have gone on to 3 a.m. if I was made of stronger stuff). Managed to get a lot of the "nose" on this one which I know would have been quite impossible without the filters. I will get more data on this one when it passes the Meridian, but any more clear nights for now will be on building up the IC410/IC405 data. Greg

Just making a start on the Rosette with the 200mm lenses. Greg

https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2023/01/3-d-view-of-dna.html Greg

Well this is quite extraordinary. I discovered a huge pile of DVDs last week and I just spent a few days downloading them all onto an HDD. The data was all very old (mostly around 2005) and is all taken with the original Hyperstar (no collimation or rotation adjusters) on a C11 with a tiny little H9C OSC CCD (1.4 Mpixels). Now as I had only JUST started off imaging, I knew absolutely nothing about sub-exposure times, or basically anything, so these two images were taken with 30 - 40-second subs, and there were 150 - 200 subs stacked for each image. As you can see - the Trapezium region of M42 is not completely blown out - unlike all my later "better" work!! So by pure luck I was actually doing better early on when I didn't know what I was doing compared to later on when I actually thought I'd learned a few things. This is not the first time that my initial best guess turned out to be almost optimum These images are from February 2005.

As I have access to the original FITS subs, I threw out 16 blobby images and was left with 36 x 10-second subs to stack. The result is a bit sharper Greg

Ahh - looking at the FITS header I see that the close up of the Trapezium was at f#6.3 on the back of the C11 with 10-second exposures.