The Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49); captured in Hydrogen alpha-Oxygen3-Oxygen3 detail, and full colour stars.
This nebula is 65 light years across and about 5,000 light years away.
#Astrophotography
Thread: how do I do this?!
/1
I have taken a picture of this before... it was one of my best taken from my DSLR + simple star tracker setup.
However, you can see that the detail with the telescope+guided mount is much sharper.
With hydrogen & oxygen filters, I can separate the data cleanly, too.
/2
Incredibly, the photo is taken from my balcony in Vancouver, where there is a tremendous amount of light pollution, AND it was taken pretty much directly pointing at a 3/4 moon. It was not a DARK sky at all.
/3
But, it's an incredible application of physics and science. The photons from the nebula are there, but they are in specific wavelengths of light. I purchased a filter that very narrowly allows those wavelengths through. @antlia_filter
/4
Each five minute photo i take lets through an incredibly faint amount of data. In fact, this is what 1 five minute exposure looks like:
if you look very closely, you can faintly see some stars.
/5
However, there is data there! in the darkest areas of the picture, the camera is receiving photons of light. if we streeeettttttchhhhh the data as far as we can (exaggerated here for effect), there is a signal in the noise!!
/6
By "stacking" (repeating this signal>noise and adding the images together), what happens is that the random noise stays random, but the faint signal stays a signal, so the computer can start working out what is noise and what is signal even better!
/7
When I get this image I have incredible processing tools (Pixinsight, Photoshop), that allow me to remove the colour cast (this is because of the moonlight and the filter itself).
/8
From this point, its just a ton of practice and technique! I separate the colour layers so that i can work on Hydrogen alpha and Oxygen III data separately (with stars removed using machine learning!)
/9
There are many processes I use, but mostly it's bending the curves of light to boost signal while minimizing background (space) noise.
Voila!!! The final image is 6500x4000, more than enough for me to print!
total data: 3.5 hours. As I add more data, it will get better.
/10
My gear:
@QHYCCD 268C main camera, QHY5-III-178M guide camera
@SkyWatcherUSA EQ6-R-Pro Mount
@WilliamOptics M-G50RIII guide scope
@antlia_filter "golden" 5nm narrowband filter
@Microsoft surface pro 7 tablet
And yes i will accept sponsorships and free gear 😅😅 to test and try! I am not above begging - this hobby is not cheap!!!
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.