Posts Made By: James Brown

This moth is about 3/4" from wing tip to wing tip. He's on my bathroom mirror. I don't have a macro lens, but this came out kind of cool with my Tamron 28-300mm zoom and Canon 300D.

Jim

Beats me! Did any of you actually watch the school speech? Did Obama stick to the script?

Jim

I caught these elk in our neighbor's yard this morning; just as the cold and foggy sunrise turned golden.

Jim

"Politics" is my favorite forum on Astromart. Jack Day is doing a fine job of moderating too. Clear-cut TOS violations are way down. Thanks Jack!

Those of you who would call for the politics forum to be closed should consider that some of us like this forum a lot. Therefore, I view your call for forum termination as fundamentally selfish. What is your real motivation? If you find participation distasteful, it is easy to press the "Hide Forum" button. I'm sorry if you don't have the backbone to hide the forum and keep it hid, but why should those of us who like the forum have to pay for your weakness?

Jim

Hi all:

This is one of two solar active regions on 9/26. There were some great proms that day too, but I blew my full disk/prom exposures. Solar imaging is remarkably challenging! I was able to salvage this close up.

This was taken with a Solar Spectrum 0.3A Ha filter.

Jim

See attached. Yesterday was just as fine. I'm going to get more quality imaging done between yesterday, today and maybe tomorrow than I have in months. We have not had good skies coincide with a new moon since forever...

Jim

Hi All:

It's been a while since I posted any images here (about two years I think.) During that time I upgraded my camera to an FLI Microline 11002M. I've spent much of the summer and fall setting up my system and getting to know the new equipment. I spent a lot of time messing with my FLI PDF focuser and TEC field flattener. We had great skies for the November new moon a few weeks ago, and I was able to get quite a bit of data on several targets. The first target that I have fully processed is the Pelican Nebula, IC 5067-70 and the Eastern part of the North America Nebula, NGC 7000 in Cygnus.

The attached is a quarter sized and compressed version of the image. I don't have a proper web page, but a full sized (4008 x 2672 pixel) image is here, hopefully it will open up for you:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Pelican-NA%20windows.jpg

A half sized version is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Pelican-NA%20windows-half.jpg

This is basically an Ha-OIII image combined to form a synthetic green channel as described by Steve Cannistra. I also layered in regular RGB data which enlarged some of the stars, but brought in quite a few more stars.

Thanks for looking and commenting. I should have about ½ dozen images ready in the next few days (or weeks or...) .

Jim

TEC APO 140
TEC Field Flattener
Astro-Physics Mach 1 Mount
Finger Lakes Microline 11002 M, 2” Filter Wheel and PDF
Starlight Xpress Lodestar with Borg 50mm f5 Achro guide lens.
Astrodon LRGB Filters, Baader Narrow Band Filters
Maxim DL 5, CCD Commander, The Sky, Photoshop CS2, Focusmax

Hi all:

Hopefully you can share some experiences solving what I have found to be a very frustrating part of astro-imaging; namely, preparing an image for web display.

First let me set the stage:

I gather data as FIT files, calibrate and combine the various subs in Maxim. Then I save separate LRGB images as uncompressed 16 bit TIFF files with Maxim. I then stretch and combine these into a LRGB image (or Ha/OIII etc.) using Photoshop CS2. My monitor at home is regularly calibrated using an Eye-One calibration device. I primarily use the stretching and processing techniques shown in Ron Wodaski’s books. After processing in Photoshop I'll have a final TIFF image that I like: the colors are right, the black point is not clipped and the range of contrast is good to my eye.

For example, I have been working on an M33 image for a while, and I now have it as a final TIFF on my computer at home that I think is just spectacular. In particular the subtle and nearly perfect oval of very faint outer stars beyond the spiral arms shows well. You don’t always see this extended portion of M33 in web images. The blue arms and HII regions are really snappy. There are dozens of tiny background galaxies in the full scale version etc.

Now comes the problem part.

To post on Astromart, or I think other web pages, I need to create an 8 bit jpeg. It is easy enough in Photoshop to convert the data to 8 bit from 16 bit and save as a jpeg. When I do that, the image still looks fine in Photoshop. Then when I save it and open it with Windows Picture and Fax viewer or Internet Explorer, the image looks terrible! The colors are all wrong and the dark regions are severely clipped.

I can go back to Photoshop and use the “proof image” function set to “Windows RGB” to see how the image is going to look on my computer with a Windows viewer. When I do that the image initially looks too bright. But if I make adjustments to the jpeg image to make it look just like the TIFF, that ultimately makes the image look even worse on other monitors, like my un-calibrated monitor at work!

Here is a link to a ½ sized M33 that I post-processed in Photoshop using the “Proof Image – Windows” function. This image looks way black-point clipped on my monitors at work. All subtlety in the dim regions are lost:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/LR%2BHaGB%208bit%20medium.jpg

Here is a link to the same image that I merely converted to an 8bit jpeg and saved. This one looks way too bright on my calibrated monitor at home, but it is still black-clipped at work! This image also does not show the subtlety of my original TIFF. It’s not even close.

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/M33%20half.jpg

Here are some possibilities I’ve been considering:

1. My monitors at work are seriously out of whack.

2. With a low-brightness extended object like M33 one is simply hosed when going from 16 bit to 8 bit.

3. I am missing a key conversion or processing step that would solve this problem. For example should I be identifying a particular color space in Photoshop at the beginning?

Any input from you all about similar experiences would be great. Also, let me know how the two M33 images look on your screen. Are the outer regions of the galaxy at all visible in either image? Are the colors OK or garish? Your input into this problem will be very much appreciated!

Jim

As most of you have read, the Senate version of the health care reform bill contains hundreds of plums and kickbacks for key votes. Senator Ben Nelson (D) Nebraska was apparently the biggest winner having secured federal aid for Nebraska's Medicare/Medicaid obligations, forever.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/health/policy/21healthcare.html?ref=todayspaper


I'm curious if resident Husker, Jim Babcock, thinks that all of the goodies coming to Nebraska will be enough to assure that Nelson is not sacrificed in the next election, assuming he votes for the bill in its final form, and it ultimately passes into law.

Also, the bill that will come out of the Senate, if the 60/40 split holds, appears to be a cobbled together mess of pay-offs and special interest entitlements. There is no public option. There is no universal coverage. Heck, not that many people will be added to the list of "insured" if immigrants are counted. The so called "evil" insurance companies are perhaps the biggest winners since the bill will force new customers to them. Costs will skyrocket according to most experts.

Are those in favor of large scale and fundamentally meaningful health care reform; Rod K. or Tony, or John S. or Brian for example still in favor of this mess?

After reviewing the news and opinion (Most all of the links on the Real Clear Politics site), it seems that the only thing this bill does is give the Ds a chance to claim victory and move on. Is there anything in this bill that you Astromarters who favor actual reform actually like?

Jim

(edit) p.s. I want to clarify the main point of my post, in case I was too obscure. Some folks want meaningful reform, for example a single payer system like Canada, GB or Sweden has. We disagree, but I respect your position.

The house and senate bills have none of that stuff. It really does look like this is just more layers of bureaucracy designed primarily to benefit selected states and special interest groups.

Do those who still favor reform disagree?

It sort of seems that the press is now treating final passage by Congress and the president of the Senate version of healthcare reform as a done deal. It may pass, but will it be Obama's undoing? I have noticed that many liberal pundits are not so "on-board" any more. For example, here is an op-ed piece by staunch liberal Bob Herbert of the liberal New York times detailing how the Senate plan screws the middle class. I keep waiting for the collective sense of self-preservation of Obama and Congress to kick in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=1

Jim