November 2012 Contest Images

[Javio]

The November edition of the 2012 PixInsight Monthly Astrophotography Contest is open. Check the contest rules and send your images until November 20th. Please use this post ONLY to submit your images.

Good luck!

[MikeWiles]

NGC 6914
Date: Multiple dates from August through October 2012
Location: Goodyear, Arizona & Happy Jack, Arizona & Portal, Arizona
Telescope: Explore Scientific ED127CF Refractor - 127mm f/7.5 Carbon Fiber Triplet
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900GTO CP3
Camera: SBIG ST-8300m and SBIG FW8-8300 filter wheel
Guiding: SBIG ST-i Mono and SBIG OAG-8300 off-axis guider
Exposure: 19.66 hours - Luminance - 10x600s, Ha - 28x1800s 1x1, RGB - 16x300 2x2 each
Capture: CCD AutoPilot v5, Maxim DL 5.18
Calibration & Processing: PixInsight 1.7

I've been working on this since early August and this is a combined total of 86 subframes shot in 3 different locations in Arizona. It represents a total of 20 hours of camera time - 14 of it in Hydrogen Alpha alone. Because I was interested in really capturing the detail in the emission portion of the nebula and the dust lanes I blended the Hydrogen Alpha data with both the luminance and the red channel. This had the intended result of really emphasizing the contrast in the dust lanes and emission nebula - but at the cost of the reflection nebula that is typically seen all across images of this field.

[Philippe B.]

Hello
Here is IC1848

Hardware : QSI-540WSG sur FSQ106ED à f/3.6
Ha : 10x20min
OIII : 10x20min
SII : 10x20min

Preprocessing and processing under Pixinsight 1.7


You can click on images to get FULL RESOLUTION :





To do channel mixing, a friend write a useful script I actually test on several images.
Here is a screen copy.

[vi100]

Object: IC1805 - The Heart Nebula

Date: Multiple nights on october 2012.
Location: Urban Observatory at Santa Pola (Spain)
Telescope: Explore Scientific ED127CF Refractor @ f/7.5
Mount: NeEQ6 Pro
Camera: QHY9 mono.
Filters: Baader narrowband set.
Guiding: Lumicon OAG + Lodestar
See image for aquisition data.

Procesed with PI. Text and frame with PS.

Clic on image for 100% version.

[topboxman]

NGC7635: Bubble Nebula Hubble Palette in Cassiopeia. 0.47"/pixel.
8/24/2012, 9/7/2012, 10/6/2012
Reno, NV USA

My first time imaging with mono camera and filters. Previously imaged with OSC camera for almost three years.

http://peternagy.smugmug.com/Telescopes/Nebulae/15823498_3vBdTQ#!i=2162346920&k=Vb7XLbX&lb=1&s=A

Astrodon Ha 5nm filter: 21 x 15 minutes, 1x1, Excellent seeing condition. 8/24/2012
Astrodon Oiii 5nm filter: 31 x 15 minutes, 1x1, Not so good seeing condition. 9/7/2012
Astrodon Sii 5nm filter: 12 x 30 minutes, 1x1, Excellent seeing condition. 10/6/2012
 
Red = Sii, Green = Ha, Blue = Oiii

Celestron 8" EdgeHD at F/10 with A-P Mach1GTO GEM. Atik 460EX mono. Autoguided with Hutech OAG and Lodestar.

Captured and pre-processed with Nebulosity. Aligned/Integration and post processed with PixInsight.
PHD Guiding settings: RA Aggressiveness: 60, RA Hysteresis: 10, Max Dec Duration: 75, Min Motion: 0.70, Calibration Steps: 125msec, Auto/Resist Switching, Extreme dithering and Settled at < 0.5, 3 - 4 sec guiding exposure.

Nebulosity processing:
a) Bad Pixel Mapping
b) Calibrate with BPM, bias and flats.

PixInsight Processing:
a) Star Alignments of all calibrated subs
b) Image Integration separately for Ha, Oiii and Sii
c) RGB combination
d) Dynamic Crop
e) Dynamic Background Extraction
f) Background Neutralization
g) Color Calibration
h) Multiscale Median Transform to remove noise while image is still linear
i) Histogram Transformation
j) SCNR to remove green
k) HDR
l) Local Histogram Equalization (LHE)
m) ACDNR
n) Curves Transformation: Saturation and RGB/K
o) Slight tweak Histogram Transformation

Peter

[Ignacio]

Galaxy NGC4945 & Co

IMAGING DATA
Optical train: AP130 EDF GT + AP flattener
Mount: Losmandy G11
Guiding: B&L 80/800 SCT guidescope + Lifecam Cinema + PHD
Camera: Canon 1000D (modded and peltier cooled)
Frames: 32 lights, 5 min. ea. @iso1600, calibrated with 50 bias, 30 flats and 20 darks.
Data reduction and processing: PI 1.7 (with minor adjustments in Photoshop and Canon DPP)
Date: 2012-03-23
Place: San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Seeing & transparency: very good/very good

Full-frame, native resolution version attached.



Regards,
Ignacio

[Oleg Bryzgalov]

M33: Triangulum Galaxy
This picture was photographed on October 10-18, 2011 in the Crimea during the festival of amateur astronomy, "Autumn Southern Nights 2012" (height of 600 m. above sea level)

Equipment: reflector S&K 200 mm. f/5, mount WhiteSwan-180, camera QSI-583wsg, Tevevue Paracorr-2. Off-axis guidecamera Orion SSAG.
LRGB filter set Baader Planetarium.
L: 23x900 sec., bin.1, RGB: 14x450-600 sec. each filter, bin.2.
To enhance the hydrogen nebulae I added some frames taken in Ha filter in 2010 and 2011.
Processed Pixinsight 1.7 and Photoshop CS5.
Full-size here: http://olegbr.astroclub.kiev.ua/files/astrofoto/M33/m33_lhrgb_oleg_bryzgalov_full.jpg