47 Tucanae - Battle of the Globs #2 (Julian Shaw)

47 Tucanae - Battle of the Globs #2

RGB 54 x 120 sec each.

Battle of the Globs: "Which is the best globular cluster in the sky?" The other obvious contender being Omega Centauri.

Perhaps because the South has all the best globs this is a contentious issue down here. So which one do I think is best? IMO, through the *eyepiece*, although it's a little smaller, I prefer the spooky tentacles of Tuc 47 to the friendly ball of Omega Cent.

But as an *image*? To paraphrase Tolstoy (hello Pseuds Corner!) images of OC are like happy families, they are all pretty much alike. But, IMO, images of 47 Tuc are like unhappy families, each is different in its own way. I found 47 Tuc harder to process than OC. I blame the target; 47 Tuc is simply less photogenic than OC!

Note that my image uses a longer integration time than most others and uses the sensitive ASI6200 camera. Result: more background stars (I like stars!).

- HEY! My 47 Tuc loving friends are not impressed: where are the distinctive tentacles?? So from my final version I made a version more like what they see through the eyepiece. The camera shows that 47 Tuc is bigger than visual observers can see and (obviously) has more stars than they can see. A side effect of this is that in the camera image the tentacles are not apparent. STGM!

B

Description: Adjusted black point with HT, applied Enhance Background script and tweaked Curves. The thumbnail still looks noisy but that's because my image has so many small STARS...

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: FINAL (Applied Keller's Repair Dark Mottle PixelMath formula.)

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: First of 2 steps to make a version more like what one sees in the eyepiece:
The chrominance channels have been discarded since the eye is relatively insensitive to colour and the non-linear stretch has been changed to *reduce* the faint stars that the eye wouldn't see...

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: Second of 2 steps to make a version more like what one sees through the eyepiece: A side effect of the first step is that it shrunk our 47 Tuc, making it look less impressive. No problem: just crop to make Tuc great again!

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: Reprocessed. This time I didn't use Black Point discovery in ArcSinhStretch because it tends to clip. Instead I used ArcSinh stretch without specifying the black point and then I adjusted the black point using HistogramTransformation.

Uploaded: ...

G

Description: Tweaks with Curves

Uploaded: ...

H

Description: Curves tweaks

Uploaded: ...

I

Description: More saturation

Uploaded: ...

ASI 6200 MM Pro
Objects of the South - negative declination only
PixInsight Addicts

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3675198
PixInsight job	8R6DLCSXQ69XHGUIDXG0VXR7WWPYW29H
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	00h24m15s.287
RA (top/left)	00h37m19s.594
RA (top/right)	00h29m22s.495
RA (bottom/right)	00h12m13s.770
RA (bottom/left)	00h18m27s.671

Dec (center)	-72°04′40″.38
Dec (top/left)	-72°48′18″.65
Dec (top/right)	-70°55′17″.69
Dec (bottom/right)	-71°17′59″.99
Dec (bottom/left)	-73°13′27″.17

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):