January 2010 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 23 Jan '10

23 Jan '10

I'm not ending up with anything useable by trying to incorporate more filter layers in an image than others, I've decided to bag this project. However, I did generate a more "sciency" schematic from the Faulkes session imagery that illustrates the structural elements of the Crab Nebula seen in Tyler's image. http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2959 The main structural elements are: 1) the central synchrontron 2) the inner filament shell 3) the connecting filaments to the outershell 4) the outer shell 5) the outer halo. At least I now understand how to run Gimp and have a much better feel for how Photoshop works. Other Utah Astro Gallery M1 images Jim Gibson http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=868 David Rankin http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2577 Patrick Wiggins http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=480 Clear Skies - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 23 Jan '10

23 Jan '10

Rather than do a gazillion individual email replies, here are some short responses to each: --------------- > Patrick 2010-01-21 19:15 -700 > Your comment about the tracking errors prompted > me to look through images others have made using the 2-meter. > Many have shorter exposures but some were longer. > But all had round stars. Good to know its an anomaly for our SLAS imaging session. Having to the "star-be-gone" thing to recover the images is pretty tediuous. --------------- > Tyler Allred 2010-01-21 21:27 -700 > I am curious about the cleaning process you are using. . . . In particular, > I notice that the bright star at the top of the blue image is not seen in > the green and red images. Also, the pulsar has been removed in > some of the images, although the shockwaves are clearly seen. . . . > How are you doing the cleaning... a filter?? No auto-filter - it was a 2 hour hand-job. I went through each image and where the stars were not round, I used a GIMP-Heal or GIMP-Clone tool to erase them. For the three largest stars, sometimes that heal operation left a visually obvious artifact and the GIMP-Smudge tool had to be used to smudge the fix area. I was not consistent about removing the same stars in each layer. The main point is that any larger round-stars are removed so the oval shape of any star (regardless of its size) is hidden when the final foregound transparent alpha layer just containing round stars is added back in. --------------- > Daniel Holmes 2010-01-21 19:39 -700 > The only complaint that I would have about that night is there wasn't any explanation as to why we were doing the settings we were doing . . . My recollection is that we were still learning to use the telescope camera, since it was the club's first open session with the Faulkes. 300 seconds is a good ball park figure to get a feel what the exposure response curve of the camera was. 300 secs is a good starting point estimate. As Tyler noted during the 1-15-2010 session, one of the drawbacks of Faukles setup is that you cannot get immediate access to the processed FITS images. With a normal small scope setup you would take a 100 to 300 sec exposure, open the FITS file and check the exposure levels in a histogram of the image. If we had had that capability, we would have immediately been able from the first image to determine that the capture a-d-us (pixel values) were way too low and could have doubled the exposure times. As it is, what the group collectively did was the right choice at the time but in retrospect did not work out. I hope some of that can be fixed with some post-imaging processing. For me, this is a consistent problem that I've seen using commercial roboscopes at GRASS - no consistent online calculator or table of recommended starting exposures for each scope-camera-filter combination, so you are not burning up rationed or expensive online scope time. -------------- I also have one other general question for attendees at the session: Q1. What was the magnification used to make the images? I believe I heard it the images had an 8 x 8 arcmin TFOV. Would that be about 390 power? ( 52 degs / (8 degs / 60 degs) ) Clear Skies, Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 23 Jan '10

23 Jan '10

The next step in the process is to build the interior of the "cave" as outlined in the previous composition strategy post. Layer numbers used here follow the proposed layer numbers in the composition strategy post. Images referenced here can be found on the Utah Astro Gallery in directory: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2935 The resulting master Photoshop file resulting from the following interim processing steps can be found in file - 2010001222MasterImage.psd in directory - http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/astronote/photos/processing/Faulkes/p… I. Build the cave interior. A. Make the blue-interior for of the cave. Layer02 Bright-blue from the blue image (201000115_cleanedblue_bit8) First, the blue cleaned image is colorized and brightened using the Colorize, Curve-levels and Contrast-brightness tools. The idea was to get a bright image color-popping image with lots of detail. Result is image Build02_01ColorCaveBlueInterior_cleanedblue_bit8.psd See "Shot01_Colorizebluecaveinterior.JPG" for the software controls used. The filename decodes as: Build-> "it's a component to build an image from." "02"-> Layer number "01"-> Version of this image-layer "ColorCaveBlueInterior"-> What it's for or the destintation of the layer. "cleanedblue_bit8"-> Where the source for this image-layer came from. B. Make the Ha string nebula as a transparent alpha foreground object layer Layer03 Bright-cyan from the Ha image (20100115_cleanedHa_bit8) To create our cyan string cloud, first will make an alpha transparency layer named "Layer03 Cyan String Cloud" in the image and a temporary working layer with a blackbackground. Second, using "Select by Color", clicking in the background of the image to select the image's background. Then invert the selection. This selects the nebulous region in the middle of the photo. Then paste the selected nebula into the transparency layer. See Shot02_SelectingStringCloud.jpg in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. I did that process twice to make sure I had Third, using the "Colorize" and "Levels" tool, change the color of this selected foreground string cloud to a bright pink. See Shot03_ColorizedStringCloud.jpg in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. See the resulting layer: Build03_01StringCloudCyanAlpha_cleanedHa_bit8.jpg in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. That completes "Layer03 Bright-cyan string cloud" I has not able to get the same translucent pink color to take to this third layer. I'll leave fixing that for later. C. Make the luminous structure layer for the cave interior Layer04 A luminous structure layer for the cave's interior from the OIII image (20100115_cleanedOIII_bit8) Making the luminous structure is done by the same process used to make cyan string cloud layer no. 3. See Shot04_Layer04MakeLuminousStructure.jpg in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. D. Assemble all the layers into a master image. Next an empty master image was made: 2010001222MasterImage Then both the blank master and each of the layer images discussed above were opened. The final component layer is then dragged into the master blank. See screen Shot05_DraggingBuildLayersToMasterImage.JPG in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. The layers are then ordered and adjusted for opacity, level, etc. See screen Shot06_CaveInteriorBuitAfterDrag.JPG in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. E. Extend the string cloud layer outside the cave interior Layer05A Another layer mask was applied to extend the string layer cloud structure outside the cave interior but using a darker color. See layer 5A in master psd file. The final interior cave portion of the image is built with the string cloud extending outside the image. See 2010001222MasterImage.jpg in the Utah Astro Gallery directory. The final result of the inner cave build is also distributed in psd format so others may play with the image. See file 2010001222MasterImage.psd in directory - http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/astronote/photos/processing/Faulkes/p… In the next processing step: 1) the current master image will be builtup by adding more layers of the surrounding outer nebula with the center masked out so the central cave can shine through. 2) hopefully some solution to getting a better translucent pink color to take on the string cloud layer will be found. The string cloud looks to candy-like. The current master image has problems and looks a little cheesy, but it suggests a processing solution. Clear Skies, Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

To help people interested in following-along or trying their own hand at assembling images into a final, I have uploaded the cleaned images in Photoshop format, converted from GIMP. I have no way to test and cannot warrant that GIMP exports will open in Photoshop. The files can be downloaded from url: http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/astronote/photos/processing/Faulkes/p… The directory will be left up for one week before a disk space recovery deletion. Files are - 20100115_cleanedHa_bit8.psd 20100115_cleanedOIII_bit8.psd 201000115_cleanedblue_bit8.psd 201000115_cleanedgreen_bit8.psd 201000115_cleanedred_bit8.psd 201000115_cleanedstarsonly_bit8.psd 201000115_cleanedstarsonlyLayerAlpha_bit8.psd The corresponding jpgs of these images are in Utah Astro Gallery directory -> http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2892 For those of you who do not own Photoshop, I am using the freeware Photoshop analogue GIMP, which takes a just a few minutes to download and install from: http://www.gimp.org/ Clear Skies - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

Okay, now that we have some layers to play around with, the next step is to formulate an image composition and colorizing strategy. Please note that the end product objective is an asethetic, not natural observation version. A brief cavet, I'm not a Tyler Allred or a David Rankin and am not a great imager. No guarantee that this will work. Even if it does not work, it may lead to other image processing ideas. I. Color selection NASA Hubble uses a basic tri-color split complimentary color scheme - cyan-red, green and blue. http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/index.php http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/eagle.php http://www.malanenewman.com/split_complementary.html II. Historical compositions I looked through a series of Crab M1 images on APOD. Composition approaches can be broken up into three general categories, i.e. - 1. Traditional RGB 3 color mix or 2 color Ha-OIII mixes Malin, Paschoff (5 meter Hale) 1995 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap951122.html Jack Schmidling undated http://schmidling.com/m01.htm Hubble 2000 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000605.html 2. Straight dark blue This is the quick-composition strategy that Tyler used. Nat'l Optical Observatory 1995 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960626.html 3. "Cave-like" composition (bright-core dark-outer) apparently using transparent alpha layers Hubble 2009 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091025.html Chandra, Hubble, Spitzer 2006 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061026.html CHFT 2004 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040128.html VLT 2003 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030914.html Chandra Hubble 2002 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020920.html III. Composition strategy for the subject image I've decided to try for a "cave-like" composition using layered coloring after the VLT 2003 image. This composition strategy will try stacking layers - principally transparent alpha layers with foreground objects - and a mask in the outlayers to create the "cave". From background to foreground, the proposed layers are: A. The interior of the cave Layer01 Black background base layer Layer02 Bright-blue from the blue image (201000115_cleanedblue_bit8) Layer03 Bright-cyan from the Ha image (20100115_cleanedHa_bit8) Layer04 A luminous structure layer for the cave's interior from the OIII image (20100115_cleanedOIII_bit8) B. Outer nebulousity rings Layers05, 6, 7 and 8 Two to four rings in green and red made from transparent alpha layers from the Ha, OIII and red layers with the core masked out to let the inner cave shine through. Layer9 A luminous structure layer from the exterior from the OIII image (20100115_cleanedOIII_bit8) D. Stellar foreground Layer10 A transparent alpha layer that contains only the stars. (201000115_cleanedstarsonlyLayerAlpha_bit8) Clear Skies - Kurt

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

P.S. to Tyler - > Tyler Allred 2010-01-21 21:27 -700 > I am curious about the cleaning process you are using. . . . > How are you doing the cleaning... a filter?? There were two parts to the cleaning process. First, a threshold band filter was used to just pull the nebulousity information out of a raw image. In Ha and OIII filter images, this tended to automatically remove most of the smaller and fainter stars in the image, since most stars did not have a strong signal in those bandpasses. Conversely, in the red and blue band, there are many more stars and the stars are exposed to a greater diameter. In those bands, even the fainter stars had a stronger signal. The second part of the cleaning process was using the Heal, Clone and Smudge tools to manually remove stars that were visually intrusive because they had an odd shape (oval or "L" shaped). - Kurt

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Fw: Archaeoastronomy Workshop Additions
by Richard Tenney 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

--- On Wed, 1/20/10, Conference Administrator <administrator(a)caasw.org> wrote: From: Conference Administrator <administrator(a)caasw.org> Subject: Archaeoastronomy Workshop Additions To: retenney(a)yahoo.com Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 4:10 PM Untitled Document PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 20, 2010 ARCHAEOASTRONOMY IN THE FIELD WORKSHOP AGENDA ADDITIONS The Conference on Archaeoastronomy of the American Southwest is pleased to announce the addition of three presentations to the schedule of the two-day workshop. "Criteria for the Attribution of Intent to Archaeoastronomical Alignments" by Tony Hull, Department of Physics and Astronomy University of New Mexico & Rock Art Archive University of California Los Angeles "The Seven Sins of Archaeoastronomy" by J. McKim Malville, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy University of Colorado "Surveying and 3D Modeling Techniques to Identify the Function and Precision of Stone Calendars" by Ron Barber, Stone Calendar Project, Los Alamos New Mexico The entire agenda and online registration is available at our website (www.caasw.org) Date: March 11-12, 2010 Time: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm each day Place: Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park, Phoenix Fee: $75 (includes lunch both days) Hotel: Crowne Plaza Phoenix Airport (across from the Museum) with a special discounted rate of $109 (plus tax) which includes a breakfast buffet in the restaurant. Free airport shuttle (one mile from airport), free Internet, free parking. A special direct reservation link is provided on the workshop web page. Space is limited to 80 attendees so early registration is strongly recommended. -End This message was sent from Conference Administrator to retenney(a)yahoo.com. It was sent from: Conference on Archaeoastronomy of the American Southwest, P.O. Box 20578, Sedona, AZ 86341. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below. Email Marketing by To be removed click here

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Mars website
by Gary Vardon 21 Jan '10

21 Jan '10

Do you want to know about Mars? The website www.msss.com has good information on space missions to Mars. Sincerely, Gary Vardon The book DO It Right will help you understand vital ideas leading to your geater success. GO to PublishAmerica.

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Wow!!! (SLAS Maui imaging session)
by Canopus56 21 Jan '10

21 Jan '10

Here is part of my ongoing image processing. The cleaned images from the prior processing step can be viewed at Utah Astro Gallery album: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2892 (You can use the "View Slideshow" and "View Slideshow fullscreen") option in Utah Astro Gallery to scroll through the images. These images will be assemble as colored layers into a final. Processing notes are attached. The next step will be to decide on a color scheme. What colors will be assigned to which layers? Clear Skies - Kurt ================================= This sub-album contains images from album ProcessedOriginal and cleans up defects in each image. Processing notes explain what cleaning was done to each image. These cleaned images are assembled as layers into the final layer. I. Cleaning images overview Seven images from the prior processing step were edited in GIMP and cleaned for artifacts. Cleaned output files were: Green Channel: 201000115_origgreen_bit8.bmp -> 201000115_cleanedgreen_bit8.bmp Red Channel: 201000115_origred_bit8.bmp -> 201000115_cleanedred_bit8.bmp OIII Channel: 20100115_origOIII_bit8.bmp -> 20100115_cleanedOIII_bit8.bmp Ha Channel: 20100115_origHa_bit8.bmp -> 20100115_cleanedHa_bit8.bmp OIII-Ha Difference Channel: 20100115_origOIIIHaDiff_bit8.bmp -> 20100115_cleanedOIIIHaDiff_bit8.bmp Blue Channel: 201000115_origblue_bit8.bmp -> 201000115_cleanedblue_bit8.bmp Stars Only Channel: 201000115_origstarsonly_bit8.bmp -> 201000115_cleanedstarsonly_bit8.bmp All images were exported to native GIMP xcf format and to jpg. From the OIII-Ha Difference Channel, a small transparent layer containing on the highlight detail was created: 20100115_cleanedOIIIHaDiffHighlightLayer_bit8.bmp II. Specific cleaning on each image was: Green Channel: 201000115_origgreen_bit8.bmp Heal tool used to remove visually intrusive bloated stars and dust particles. Round stars will be added back in using 201000115_origstarsonly_bit8.bmp. For image purists, note the 10-25-2009 APOD of a Hubble M1 where the foreground stars have mysteriously disappeared. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091025.html Clone and smudge tools used on five stars with large amounts of bloat that were beyond the Heal Tools capabilities. Three of these stars are at the edges and might be cropped off in future versions. Red Channel: 201000115_origred_bit8.bmp Heal tool used to remove visually intrusive bloated stars and dust particles. Clone and smudge tools used on five stars with large amounts of bloat that were beyond the Heal Tools capabilities. Three of these stars are at the edges and might be cropped off in future versions. Blue Channel: 201000115_origblue_bit8.bmp Only very minor edits. Most of the stars are slightly oval - probably from a registration error. Only four stars were removed - the two central stars of the nebula and on the edge. Star bloat in the blue channel is probably too minor for an unsophisticated eye, but an experienced amateur will notice it. Two minor dust particles were removed with the Heal tool. OIII Channel: 20100115_origOIII_bit8.bmp Heal tool used to remove visually intrusive bloated stars, dust particles and apparently an NEO or satellite trace right at the visual center of the image. Many small CCD hot pixels were removed. Clone and smudge tools used on a few stars with large amounts of bloat that were beyond the Heal Tools capabilities. This channel had to be heavily worked on - mostly due to hot pixels. Part of the central nebulosity ring is overexposed. May try to use the "OIII-Ha Difference Channel" to fix this later. Ha Channel: 20100115_origHa_bit8.bmp Serious "L"-shaped star bloat in image such that image may not be useable in final. Virtually every size - even faint magnitudes - have "L" shape bloat. Heal tool used to remove heavy star bloat where visually instrusive. Dust particles, NEOs and hot pixels were present. Part of the central nebulosity ring is overexposed. OIII-Ha Difference Channel: Only a small masked area of this image will be used to provide luminuous details to part of the central nebulous ring. First, the Heal and Clone tools were sued to remove many small hot pixels and NEO streaks around the nebulousity region of interest. Created "20100115_cleanedOIIIHaDiffHighlightLayer_bit8.bmp" - a small layer box with a transparent background. Stars Only Channel: 201000115_origstarsonly_bit8.bmp Image was gamma stretched to make the stars brighter. Anything not a star was removed. Then the stars where cut to a new alpha channel (transparent) layer, where they can be floated over the top of the final image. The stars alpha layer created "201000115_cleanedstarsonlyLayerAlpha_bit8.bmp".

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Nexstar 6SE for sale
by Craig Smith 21 Jan '10

21 Jan '10

In case you know anyone who would be interested . I would like to sell my Nexstar 6SE to get a larger scope. It is 2 years old but has not been used much and is in excellent condition. Although I have not personally done this, it could potentially be carried on an airplane as the dimensions of the case are 9x14x22. I am looking for $600 for the scope, Astrozap dew shield, Telecovers soft case, and JMI counterweights, a more than $950 value. I also have other accessories available. Craig Smith cs2560(a)gmail.com

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