A clear view of Eta Carina (Brian Boyle)

A clear view of Eta Carina

Note added for latest revision.: Reprocessed with BlurExterminator. YMMV, but it has taken my imaging to a new level. Have tightened the crop to show-off the detail, but Astobin's click and drag shows off best.

Dear Astrobin friends, Forgive for post another image of Eta Carina so soon.

I would like to say that I deliberately planned a second NB session in a week on Eta Car with the same rig - but this time with the camera oriented in a better direction.

But the plain fact of the matter is that I simply forgot I had taken an image of this object only a week ago. At my age, this is troubling. A goldfish could do better.

I only realised my mistake about 3 sub-frames in.. By that time (11.30pm) I had put the cat to bed, was heading to mine and couldn't summon up the energy to change targets. Besides, with nights that are only 4hours long here at the moment, it would have seriously eaten into whatever night I had left.

So I went to bed and let the telescope plough on regardless. Determined to make some form of amends for my embarrassing mistake, I decided to see if I could do a better job of post-processing this time. [A week is a long time in AP]. After a bit of care, I think this version is better. It has more data, includes the lovely Gabriella Mistral nebula, and picks out the "softer" nebulosity to the south of Eta Car much better.

Eta Car is a tough object to do well, given the wide dynamic range across the nebula. My processing has yet to do it justice, but I am getting plenty of practice on this object.

Ha: 29 x 300s
[OIII]: 18 x 300s
[SII]: 17 x 300s

Original
B
C
Final
D

B

Description: Tweaked curves a little to reduce "blowout" in the middle.

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: New version, cropped around Eta Car nebula and processed using BlurXterminator.

Uploaded: ...

New Zealand Astrophotography
AstroBin Platform open discussions community forum

	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	5427981
PixInsight job	Z3OO6G17VNR4Q6JTMA2CXT9R664YI085
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	10h41m56s.95
RA (top/left)	10h53m53s.26
RA (top/right)	10h35m49s.73
RA (bottom/right)	10h28m55s.44
RA (bottom/left)	10h48m49s.87

Dec (center)	-59°52′26″.1
Dec (top/left)	-58°22′28″.7
Dec (top/right)	-57°52′54″.3
Dec (bottom/right)	-61°17′40″.9
Dec (bottom/left)	-61°50′22″.5

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):