Welcome to my Astrophotography Blog!

This is a journal of my adventures in astrophotography -- taking images of distant celestial objects. Please look around and feel free to add your comments, questions, and critique to any of the entries by clicking the "comments" button on the bottom of each entry -- or just say "howdy!

And don't forget to click on the images for a larger view!

So choose either the Red pill or the Blue pill and follow me down the wormhole....

JOhn

Comanche Springs Star Party

Comanche Springs Star Party
Doin' my thang at the Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus (where I often become a "red ghost")

Dallas Sky

Rancho Venado Sky

Atoka Sky

Camanche Springs Sky

Monday, October 18, 2010

Dust Bunny

Here is my first CCD image to be processed from Okie-Tex. This is an enormous dust complex in Taurus, centered around the blue reflection nebula Vdb27.

After working on this image for a while it started looking to me like a giant bunny leaping right to lower left across the frame (please tell me you see a bunny too).

These types of targets are among my favorite to image. The illuminated dust has a very 3D quality that I really like and try to bring out in the photo.

FSQ 106EDX f/3.6
STL-11000M -20C
LRGB 150,30,30,30
CCDStack, PixInsight, CS5

4 comments:

NERT said...

This has to be the best astrophoto I have ever seen. Thank you very much for sharing.

I was curious, about how much time post-processing is involved?

Neutronman said...

Thanks Mu!

I spent a couple of days processing (I usually do most of the work in one day, sleep on it, then tweak the next day with fresh eyes).

Polaris B said...

I really like this, too. I didn't see the bunny at first. Instead, I saw an angry hawk whose wings move from upper right to bottom left. I think the bunny and the hawk have the same head, though.

What magnitude is the dust? I've seen hints of it in my images, but nothing quite like this. It's stunning! I'm sure the short f/ratio helps.

Neutronman said...

Thanks Polaris,

I do not find any magnitude data on these dust structures. LBN777 is a prominent object (the "vulture head" at the lower right corner), but I find no reference to magnitude.

They are faint, but can be seen in a single 15 min luminance sub at f/3.6.
Yes, fast f/ratio helps!