IC4812 (et al) A Very Challenging Mosaic

[kiwiapple]

Sorry for my long silence--between a short trip around the South Island in late July, and guests at the lodge in August, I have been a bit distracted. But I have been keeping the telescope and cameras busy, including attempting my first multi-panel mosaic of this target, the darkest dust clouds in the sky (supposedly). The bright bit is a lovely nebula, NGC6727, and then there are all these dust clouds that seem to billow from it. Took a lot of effort to combine, and while it's still not perfect, I'm putting the matter aside for a bit now.

 

[JimFox]

This looks really nice James! Dark nebula are really difficult, and then letting all of the dust clouds to be displayed. I know when I started out, a scene like this I would have taken super dark and lost of the clouds as I wasn't sure what I was seeing. But now I can appreciate it.

It sounds like you have been busy! Which is good of course, though we have missed you for sure. You have probably thought of this, but you ought to have a pad set up at your lodge for astro guys to come and use. It might bring in more people.

 

[kiwiapple]

When you say a "pad", do you mean a place where they can set up their gear and shoot with their own equipment? We do have something like that--since I have a large flat patio where I set up my own rigs, we let folks who are interested do the same (and they can even use my mounts, if they don't travel with their own, for a small donation). My new place, the one with the observatory, will definitely be better geared to that sort of thing, since there are many more locations on the property where one could set up a rig and have 360-degree clear views in Bortle-2 conditions. Only thing there is that they would need a power supply, since we won't be able to put outlets all over the 10-acre property.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Great work on this - mosaics are often MUCH more complex to create than the casual viewer realizes. I think this looks quite good, no doubt the issues you have with it are just because you are one who put it together and are familiar with all the small issues the casual observer would never notice. Always good to put it aside for a bit and get back to it with fresh eyes, but until then this stands very well as is. Lovely work on this expansive view of such a varied portion of the sky.

ML

 

[Dan Moorehead]

Mesmerizing