Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => Landscape Showcase => Topic started by: Colorado_CJ on November 09, 2019, 07:09:55 pm

Title: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Colorado_CJ on November 09, 2019, 07:09:55 pm
I changed over my astrophotography setup back to my Stellarvue SV80 APO refractor to image some wide-field targets that are now coming up in the night sky.

Last night I spent the night imaging two different targets, one new one for me and the other one of my favorites.

This first one is on of my favorites, the Orion Nebula.  This nebula is easily seen with the naked eye in a dark location, is very bright and very big.

I shot this using narrow band filters (filters that only let in a tiny sliver in the spectrum of light). I edited it using the Hubble Palette, using a black and white camera and where the Sulfur II filtered image is assigned to the red channel, the Hydrogen Alpha filtered image is assigned to the green channel and the Oxygen III filtered image is assigned to the blue channel.

This image is a "stack" of:
30, 150 second H-Alpha images
30, 150 second OIII images
30, 150 second SII images

And the core (the bright area containing the trapezium stars) is made from a "stack" of

20, 60 second H-Alpha images
20, 60 second OIII images
20, 60 second SII images

The Orion Nebula is SO bright, that the core is always blown out on the main images, so you have to take a separate set of shorter exposures and blend the images together so you can see some detail in the core.

I never imaged this in the Hubble Palette before, I usually image it in RGB, or natural colors.  I really like the way it turned out.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49040172246_c102a91f6f_o.jpg)


Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Colorado_CJ on November 09, 2019, 07:10:27 pm
This second image is a new one for me.  It is called the Eastern Veil Nebula,  a small part of a much larger remanent made from a star that went supernova.

It is pretty neat looking, almost looks electric.  This was shot in Bicolor using a blend of H-alpha and Oxygen III images.

I got around 24, 300 second exposures with the H-Alpha filter, but only 10, 300 second exposures with the Oxygen III filter.  I image in a small backyard and trees got in the way.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49038310818_ff2dbbc76d_o.jpg)
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on November 09, 2019, 07:23:33 pm
Both quite excellent.
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: maddogmurph on November 09, 2019, 07:38:22 pm
Fantastic. It sounds complicated.
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Rajan Parrikar on November 10, 2019, 04:49:35 am
The first image is wonderful.
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Paulo Bizarro on November 10, 2019, 05:46:24 am
Fantastic.
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Colorado_CJ on November 10, 2019, 10:38:13 am
Thanks everyone.


I can't leave well enough alone.  I decided to try to edit this in HSO also.  I am not sure which one I like better.  HSO give a closer "true" color, but the SHO is something very different.

(H= H-Alpha, S= Sulfur II, O= Oxygen III in place of Red, Green, Blue)


Here's the HSO version

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49040389308_7a7965ae20_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2hHwPcA)Orion-HSO-Small (https://flic.kr/p/2hHwPcA) by Colo CJ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/184532879@N08/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Peter McLennan on November 10, 2019, 12:20:08 pm
Absolutely gobsmacking images.  I had no idea that that level of imagery was possible from "a small back yard".
They look like the products of billion-dollar space telescopes.

Congratulations on your achievements and thanks for sharing them with us. 

Now try and get some sleep!  :)
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: rabanito on November 10, 2019, 12:51:17 pm
Fantastic.
Keep them coming please
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: petermfiore on November 10, 2019, 01:02:53 pm
Absolutely gobsmacking images.  I had no idea that that level of imagery was possible from "a small back yard".
They look like the products of billion-dollar space telescopes.

Maybe CO_CJ has got some very deep pockets, but needs to keep it a secret ; )


Peter
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: RSL on November 10, 2019, 03:48:04 pm
Wow!
Title: Re: Orion and the Eastern Veil
Post by: Arlen on November 11, 2019, 03:27:11 pm
Wow!

Indeed. I'm partial to the first one, but they are all fantastic.