Hi All,

I'm a bit of sucker for this part of the sky. It was fine again last night with steady seeing but not the best transparency. To create this image I have joined to wide angle shots together and used a diffuse filter which causes the colours of the brighter stars to become more obvious. Not an effect that's to everyones taste but makes an interesting effect.

Taken with a Canon 10D camera, 2 x 6 minutes exposures plus dark frame, ISO 800, 18-55mm Lens at 20mm f4. Images were stitched together with PTGui and image processing done with PixInsight

Chris.

www.starrynightphotos.com

Attached Images

mw_mosaic.jpg (86.8 KB, 8 views)

Chris nice photo very nice.

Great Pic, No sky gets this dark in the city, cant even see the milkyway

Wow! The stars look like jewels! What a lovely image. Well done!

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I love this shot; Thanks for putting it up here. Just like Jake, I love how the stars all add beautiful beads of crips colour to the borwn/tan/blackness of the MW. I especially love how Antares contrasts all the other stars with it's different size and colour.

[quote]2 x 6 minutes exposures plus dark frame[quote]

What is the "dark frame"? I'm no photographer, but I understand the rest, just not sure about this term. Thanks to anyone who clarifies.

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I, for one, like what you did. The dark nebula complex known by the nickname of the Prancing Horse, of which the Pipe Nebula is a part, stands out quite well in the upper left quadrant of your image.

Dave Mitsky

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Here's an image that isolates the Prancing Horse (northern hemisphere view):

http://www.home.ix.netcom.com/~bwilson2/ba...eb/milkyway.htm

It's in the center of the shot.

Dave Mitsky

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A dark frame is exactly what the name implies. It's a shot taken sans light in order to remove CCD bias and thermal noise from the eventual final image of the object.

http://www.astrosurf.com/re/process.html

Dave Mitsky

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Thanks Dave. So I guess it's like a white balance that photographers use for video cameras?

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Nothing in life is good nor bad; thinking makes it so.

Thanks Dave, I usually bring out the filter when seeing conditions are not so good.

Here's another shot of the Pipe I did a while ago. In this position the dark nebula resembles a Kiwi, a native bird here in New Zealand.

Pipe Nebula / Kiwi

Regards,

Chris

Great pic.

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Thanks Dave, I usually bring out the filter when seeing conditions are not so good.

Here's another shot of the Pipe I did a while ago. In this position the dark nebula resembles a Kiwi, a native bird here in New Zealand.

Pipe Nebula / Kiwi

Regards,

Chris [/b][/quote]
So it does. Do you have a shot of the Emu?

http://www.paulfloyd.id.au/amaz/try/charts...on_The_Emu.html

http://www.faster.co.nz/~rasnz/Stars/Crux.htm

Dave Mitsky

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Hi Dave,

Yes I do. Don't think it's on my web site, so here it is.

Chris.

Attached Images

emu.jpg (33.4 KB, 1 views)

In Chris's original shot are the bottom edge of the central bulge looks very grainy, is that just the JPEG compression?

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