I'm an engineer that makes those drawings and I can't dispute this at all.
We would probably only ever get a real image like this if humanity becomes a multi-galactic race. And I agree, the odds of that are close to zero and sad.
The Cygnus Loop is a spernova remnant in the Cygnus constellation. The nebula is massive, much larger than the full moon in the sky. It is about 120 light years in diameter and over 2,000 light years away from the Earth. This data is a false color image consisting of Hydrogen and Oxygen emissions along with true-color RGB stars. Was taken over most of the month of July 2023.
My Gear:
- Redcat 51 II APO 250mm f/4.9
- iOptron CEM120 mount
- Custom fabricated steel pier mounted to a concrete pier
- ROR Observatory based on Skyshed plans
Aquisition (per panel):
- 38x180s Chroma Blue
- 38x180s Chroma Red
- 37x180s Chroma Green
- 73x600s Chroma Ha 3nm
- 73x600s Chroma OIII 3nm
Total integration time: 29 hours 59 min
Site quality: On the best nights, roughly 20.4 Mag/arcs^2 or Bortle 5.0.
All Processing is in Pixinsight except where noted.
PreProcessing (all channels):
- WBPP for calibration, registration, and integration
- Dynamic Crop
RGB Stars:
- Linear fit of the three channels
- Channel Combination
- BlurXTerminator to reduce and sharpen stars
- NoiseXTerminator
- Histogram Transformation
Ha, OII:
- StarXTerminator star removal
- Dynamic Background Extraction
- NoiseXTerminator
- Histogram Transformation
- Pixelmath combine to HOO
- Curves to tweak color
- BlurXTerminator sharpening
- Pixelmath to add stars
- Curves Transformation for brightness/contrast/saturation/color balance
- Resample 66%
- NoiseXTerminator
- Watermark added (Gimp)
This shows how effective nuclear weapons are as a deterrent. The threat of them is the only thing keeping the war going this long.
Same reason you see chevrons on the back of some modern turbofan engines
Sounds like these workers are extremely important and the company is dead in the water without them. The company should be well motivated to provide them a great deal they are happy with right? /s
My Gear:
- TS ONTC 8" f/4 Newtonian with Moonlite CRL 2.5 focuser
- QHY268M camera with Chroma filters and a Paracorr Type II coma corrector
- iOptron CEM120 mount
- Custom fabricated steel pier mounted to a concrete pier
- ROR Observatory based on Skyshed plans
Aquisition:
- 116x180s Chroma Blue
- 120x180s Chroma Red
- 120x180s Chroma Green
- 260x180s Chroma Luminance
Total integration time: 30 hours 48 min
Site quality: On the best nights, roughly 20.4 Mag/arcs^2 or Bortle 5.0.
All Processing is in Pixinsight except where noted.
PreProcessing (all channels):
- WBPP for calibration, registration, and integration
- Dynamic Crop
Luminance:
- Dynamic Crop
- Dynamic Background Extraction
- BlurXTerminator
- NoiseXTerminator
- Histogram Transformation
RGB:
- Dynamic Crop
- Dynamic Background Extraction
- Linear fit of the three channels
- Channel Combination
- Star Alignment with distortion correction enabled (some stars had some chromatic abberation)
- Photometric Color Calibration
- SCNR green
- BlurXTerminator
- Histogram Transformation
- LRGB Combination
- Masked stretching to bring out more depth
- Curves using mask to enhance saturation and brightness/contrast
- MMT chrominance noise reduction on background (blacks) only to remove some color mottling
- Curves color/brightness/contrast enhancement
- Resample
- Watermark added (Gimp)
M13 Globular Cluster in Hercules
This is the great globular in Hercules. One of the first awe inspiring celestial objects I ever looked at through a visual telescope. This is my third time imaging this target and my goal was to go deep and to bring out as many stars as possible without blowing out the core. Captured over 30 hours of integration time from my ROR observatory in my backyard. Also available on Astrobin here.
What about tipping points? I hear about ice cover, ocean currents, and other systems where once we get past a tipping point, additional warming is self sustaining. At that point it doesn't matter if we have our brakes on, we've gone over the cliff right?
Nothing like subverting the will of your own constituents
I've found Nebula to be great for a few creators I follow, but the amount of content isn't high enough to wean me off of YouTube completely.