Author Topic: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!  (Read 2821 times)

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Offline Libertas

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charlesoakwood

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2011, 12:27:00 PM »

Astounding.


Offline rickl

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2011, 06:46:06 PM »
Wow, that's real dedication.

Quote
“Making an atlas of the night sky is something that mostly professional astronomers would have done in the past,” said Fraknoi, who is also chairman of the astronomy department at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Calif. “With new computer tools at our disposal, it’s remarkable what amateur astronomers can discover.”

That's true too.
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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2011, 07:38:50 PM »
That's amazing. My first impression was amazement at the number of stars, and my very next thought was amazement at how infinitely the void between them dwarfs the totality of them. What looks like an infinite cluster of energy is really little specks of indescribably sparse dust when held up to the vastness of space.
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Offline Predator Don

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2011, 08:26:00 PM »
That is fantastic.....The creativity and excellence of man when untethered by gov't.
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Offline Glock32

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2011, 08:59:01 PM »
Very impressive work. When you go somewhere truly remote, you get to see the stars how pre-industrial people saw them. It's actually quite astounding to see when you're used to the night sky in a developed area.

Once as a kid we were on a fishing expedition at Cape Hatteras, out on the beach at night. I've never seen anything like it. You realize how shooting stars are actually not all that uncommon, you just usually can't see them. I must have seen at least 10 shooting stars that night.
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Offline Libertas

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2011, 09:01:12 PM »
Being in the middle of the ocean will work too.  It's overwhelming to see on a pitch black night.

Makes a man truly feel he is just a mote.
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Offline John Florida

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2011, 03:20:24 PM »
Damn!! That's something.
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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2011, 08:48:34 PM »
Very impressive work. When you go somewhere truly remote, you get to see the stars how pre-industrial people saw them. It's actually quite astounding to see when you're used to the night sky in a developed area.

Once as a kid we were on a fishing expedition at Cape Hatteras, out on the beach at night. I've never seen anything like it. You realize how shooting stars are actually not all that uncommon, you just usually can't see them. I must have seen at least 10 shooting stars that night.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern MN is a perfect place for such viewing. On a clear moonless night, it can almost feel like you're IN space. And sometimes you get the added pleasure of vivid Aurora Borealis.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

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Offline LadyVirginia

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Offline Libertas

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #10 on: May 22, 2011, 10:04:04 AM »
Pretty cool!
 ::thumbsup::

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #11 on: May 22, 2011, 10:25:22 AM »
I wonder what accounts for the globs of red, or the wisps of black. I'm sure it has to do with the light spectrum and the gases involved, but I mean, what accounts for them being where they are? Just one of those red globs has got to be unimaginably huge. I'd be interested in a scientific explanation.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

- Thomas Jefferson

Offline Libertas

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2011, 12:08:58 PM »
It could also be an effect of the filters he used and how they interacted with the light coming from nearby stars, nebulas and gas clouds.  Plus, post-picture digital scrubbing tom enhance definition could have also magnified the filtering.  In any magnified lense red-shifting is more pronounced too, but for this I do not think he was using anything too powerful, 85mm lenses by the look of it so I am thinking it is filters and enhancements.

The type of filters he used (Ha & LRGB) can be found at a lot of places, for a good desription of what they do Orion Telescope has pretty good info -

http://www.telescope.com/Accessories/Telescope-Eyepiece-Filters/125-Orion-LRGB-Astrophotography-Filter-Set/pc/-1/c/3/sc/48/p/5563.uts

http://www.telescope.com/Accessories/Telescope-Eyepiece-Filters/125-Orion-H-Alpha-Extra-Narrowband-Filter/pc/-1/c/3/sc/48/p/5587.uts
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Offline rickl

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Re: 37k + exposures & 60k miles to create one big pic!
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2011, 04:37:03 PM »
I believe the dark areas are interstellar dust and the red areas are hydrogen gas.

Some of the brighter gas clouds are visible in telescopes from ideal dark sky sites (which are increasingly rare nowadays).  NGC 1499 - The California Nebula

The more notable dark dust clouds are also visible in telescopes, but they reveal their presence by obscuring the stars in the background.  In other words, you can pan across the Milky Way with your telescope, and notice an area which seems to have fewer stars.  You're looking at a dark dust cloud with maybe a few stars in the foreground, while the more numerous distant stars are obscured.

See this Wikipedia page.  I've heard of the Coalsack Nebula, but I've never heard of the Emu in the Sky before.
We are so far past and beyond the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that the Colonists and Founders experienced and which necessitated the Revolutionary War that they aren’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.
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