My wife and I had the pleasure of hosting Adam Block when he held his image processing workshop in Cincinnati early this year. On the last night of his stay, over dinner, he shared a story about Pelicans.
Apparently, Arizona roads are posing a danger to a species of pelican. This species flies over that state as part of its migratory route. Flying over Arizona, they mistake the dark lanes of Arizona highway for waterways.
Here's a little bit of trivia about pelicans: they are very buoyant birds. So buoyant that they have trouble submerging themselves in water. Now given that they have to go underwater for the fish they prey on, they have to modify their behavior in order to submerge themselves: they dive-bomb straight down onto the water at high speed.
This is quite unfortunate for those pelicans flying over Arizona thinking that they are about to go on a dip.
Switching topics for a minute, I am delighted about the stories unfolding in the skies above us handed down from the Ancients. And how the characters in the stories are immortalized in the heavens above.
That all having been said, here is my own feeble attempt at contributing to the characters of myth and legend as I immortalize the Migrating Pelican Story. Quite obviously, it is the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), done in narrowband.
When I first saw pictures of the Pelican Nebula several years ago, I often saw (with my somewhat twisted sense of humor) that there was something off about that bird. To my eyes, it didn't look at all like it was in the best of health (and that's putting it mildly). In the context of Adam's story, it's now making sense
So here is my first attempt at imaging this pair of gargantuan nebulae, depicting a dazed ol' bird staring somewhat dazedly at the continent harboring the state whose roads fool it into taking a dive:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/NanPelicanPass3.jpg
This is a total of nine hours' worth of exposure taken with an SBIG STL-6303 camera with Astrodon narrow-band filters on a Takahashi FSQ-106 riding a Takahashi EM200 mount.
H-alpha: 6 x 30 minutes binned 1 x 1
S-II: 6 x 30 minutes binned 1 x 1
O-III: 6 x 30 minutes binned 1 x 1
Image was taken over three weeks in June 2006 from my light-polluted backyard. MaximDL was used to capture and preprocess (calibrate, align, median-combine, gradient-removal, DDP) the images, and Photoshop CS was used for the final color combine and processing. Color mapping was done using the Hubble Palette (SII = R, H-alpha = G, O-III = B).
This is less than half-size, and the conversion to JPG didn't help either (the green channel looks clipped in the JPG, but it's really not in the TIF). The full-sized TIF looks a lot nicer.
Many thanks to Jay Ballauer and Don Goldman, who helped me get past my first attempts at processing this image (you might remember the first version I posted a couple of weeks ago:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/NANPelicanPass1.jpg). This is my first full attempt at doing SII/Ha/OIII processing using data gathered from a light-polluted site, so I was initially unsure of the data. It turns out that there were gradients in the OIII data, which I did not remove in the first version. A quick pass at gradient removal using Maxim's tool helped big time. Jay was especially encouraging, as he assured me that I have very nice data - he processed a binned version of the combined files, and turned up with a killer image indeed - my current version doesn't hold water to his processing of my data, but I present mine to the world anyway as I slowly learn multiple aspects of this hobby all at once.
I'll probably look at this version tomorrow and think "What was I smoking when I posted this?!?" And truth is, this has already happened two or three times.
So anyways, enjoy what will probably end up being yet another work-in-progess image. As hinted, I welcome comments and suggestions.
Clear skies!
Eric
Apparently, Arizona roads are posing a danger to a species of pelican. This species flies over that state as part of its migratory route. Flying over Arizona, they mistake the dark lanes of Arizona highway for waterways.
Here's a little bit of trivia about pelicans: they are very buoyant birds. So buoyant that they have trouble submerging themselves in water. Now given that they have to go underwater for the fish they prey on, they have to modify their behavior in order to submerge themselves: they dive-bomb straight down onto the water at high speed.
This is quite unfortunate for those pelicans flying over Arizona thinking that they are about to go on a dip.
Switching topics for a minute, I am delighted about the stories unfolding in the skies above us handed down from the Ancients. And how the characters in the stories are immortalized in the heavens above.
That all having been said, here is my own feeble attempt at contributing to the characters of myth and legend as I immortalize the Migrating Pelican Story. Quite obviously, it is the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), done in narrowband.
When I first saw pictures of the Pelican Nebula several years ago, I often saw (with my somewhat twisted sense of humor) that there was something off about that bird. To my eyes, it didn't look at all like it was in the best of health (and that's putting it mildly). In the context of Adam's story, it's now making sense
So here is my first attempt at imaging this pair of gargantuan nebulae, depicting a dazed ol' bird staring somewhat dazedly at the continent harboring the state whose roads fool it into taking a dive:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/NanPelicanPass3.jpg
This is a total of nine hours' worth of exposure taken with an SBIG STL-6303 camera with Astrodon narrow-band filters on a Takahashi FSQ-106 riding a Takahashi EM200 mount.
H-alpha: 6 x 30 minutes binned 1 x 1
S-II: 6 x 30 minutes binned 1 x 1
O-III: 6 x 30 minutes binned 1 x 1
Image was taken over three weeks in June 2006 from my light-polluted backyard. MaximDL was used to capture and preprocess (calibrate, align, median-combine, gradient-removal, DDP) the images, and Photoshop CS was used for the final color combine and processing. Color mapping was done using the Hubble Palette (SII = R, H-alpha = G, O-III = B).
This is less than half-size, and the conversion to JPG didn't help either (the green channel looks clipped in the JPG, but it's really not in the TIF). The full-sized TIF looks a lot nicer.
Many thanks to Jay Ballauer and Don Goldman, who helped me get past my first attempts at processing this image (you might remember the first version I posted a couple of weeks ago:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/NANPelicanPass1.jpg). This is my first full attempt at doing SII/Ha/OIII processing using data gathered from a light-polluted site, so I was initially unsure of the data. It turns out that there were gradients in the OIII data, which I did not remove in the first version. A quick pass at gradient removal using Maxim's tool helped big time. Jay was especially encouraging, as he assured me that I have very nice data - he processed a binned version of the combined files, and turned up with a killer image indeed - my current version doesn't hold water to his processing of my data, but I present mine to the world anyway as I slowly learn multiple aspects of this hobby all at once.
I'll probably look at this version tomorrow and think "What was I smoking when I posted this?!?" And truth is, this has already happened two or three times.
So anyways, enjoy what will probably end up being yet another work-in-progess image. As hinted, I welcome comments and suggestions.
Clear skies!
Eric
Attached Image:
