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Free Data - Thor's Helmet Bicolor w/ RGB Stars (Coupon no longer needed)

Acquisition Deep Sky News
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Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Hello all,

We are offering up some free data, but only for a limited time. There is somewhat of a catch to this though, let me explain.

We are going live with our full production launch of the Dark Matters Astrophotography service on 4/12/2024. As part of the lead-up to the launch we are buttoning up config, and making sure we can freeze the code for the site and focus on running a stable service.

Part of this is to have a strong security footprint for the service, since no one wants to buy products from an online service that has breachable accounts laying around, as that would undermine the whole point in purchasing from us. To support our security goals we have enabled Two Factor Authentication for all accounts on the service, and have implemented a strong password requirement. 

To obtain this data, you would need to traverse this new account requirement, whether you have an account now, or not.

We sent a service wide communication on this, that you can read here: https://view.creativemail.com/v1.0/campaigns/3a51ca9a-ff6e-4269-9f4f-6bf3edc0ec6f/view

Here is the data: https://darkmattersastro.com/product/thor-bicolor/
Here is the Coupon Code for 100% off: CSUMAQB

So please have it, and let us know what you think of the process and the data itself. Also be sure to post your process runs on the data. 

Here is our latest: https://www.astrobin.com/obe9l8/

Thanks,
Bill Long
Founder, Dark Matters Astrophotography
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Oddly enough the code having a expiry date of 4/1/2024 (set on a calendar) caused the code to be invalid. 

I have removed the expiry date and the code now works properly.
Phil Wright avatar
Phil Wright avatar
Thanks Bill. Looking forward to playing with this data!

Phil
Well Written
Ani Shastry avatar
Ani Shastry avatar
@Bill, thank you for sharing this data. The data is exceptionally good quality, and I was able to stretch and play with it quite a bit particularly given it's just under 5 hours. Here's a quick attempt at processing it; I downsampled the massive 100Mpixel image at 0.3"/px by 2x2 and took some liberty with the colors. It was a lot of fun!

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Dominik avatar
Dominik avatar
Dear Bill,

thank you very much. It is an absolute privilege to work with such data. It is something completely different. This object is out of reach from my location. Attached is an edit that took me almost 4 hours using my standard workflow.

There are a few mistakes in it. I think I will edit it again. I am still a beginner in PixInsight and have only had the software for 2 weeks.

Full Version: Thors Helmet - Data from DarkMatters

CS
Dominik

Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Awesome job.

We put that data together as a test of sorts to see what 4 hours + stars data could pull off for this target. I was very impressed by how well it came out for such a short integration.

We are going to go back after this, likely using the system in Chile, for a much longer integration (~25 hours).

I was also able to glean some insights from all of the traffic coming into the site which we will be making some additional changes based on, prior to the 4/12/2024 launch. Good stuff! smile

-Bill
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Dominik avatar
Dominik avatar
Awesome job.

We put that data together as a test of sorts to see what 4 hours + stars data could pull off for this target. I was very impressed by how well it came out for such a short integration.

Hi Bill,

It was really fun. The data was very good the background and stars are so smooth. OIII was really good to work with.

However, I had problems with HA.I think more integration time is needed here.

But overall, I was really surprised at what came out with so little integration time.

Really great. It is a real option for objects i does not reach because of my location.

CS
Dominik
Christian Koll avatar
Christian Koll avatar
Bill,

this is eceptionally good data - thank you so much for sharing it!

Please find my take at your data here: https://www.astrobin.com/6fslrx/



I was not happy how the colors came out during narrowband normalization in PI, so I simply took the RGB data as color layer and the narrowband as the luminance layer. The data is so good, this was not even the slightest problem.

Again, thank you so much!
Chris

PS: If you'd offer some galaxy data on your website I'd be highly interested!
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Dominik avatar
Dominik avatar
Christian Koll:
Bill,

this is eceptionally good data - thank you so much for sharing it!

Hi Christian, 

i took a closer look at your image and I'm really impressed with the detail you've been able to bring out in the central region. The fine structures are very clear and sharp and the overall processing is very well done.

I'd be interested about your workflow for this image. Do you use PixInsight? If so, could you share some of the steps and processes you used to achieve such great results?

CS Dominik
Well Written Respectful Engaging Supportive
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Christian Koll:
Bill,

this is eceptionally good data - thank you so much for sharing it!

Please find my take at your data here: https://www.astrobin.com/6fslrx/



I was not happy how the colors came out during narrowband normalization in PI, so I simply took the RGB data as color layer and the narrowband as the luminance layer. The data is so good, this was not even the slightest problem.

Again, thank you so much!
Chris

PS: If you'd offer some galaxy data on your website I'd be highly interested!



https://darkmattersastro.com/product/m51-ha-lrgb/

We have a bunch of galaxy projects running now as well, so more is on the way! 🙂
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Folk should notice now that Two Factor Authentication is required, we disabled auto-login after registration to prevent the commerce platform from bypassing the 2FA registration process as well. Folks can now logon with Username and Password with 2FA, Magic Link, and Passkey which can allow for you to use things like biometrics. The 2FA will also allow you to suppress it for 30 days on the same device, for all three logon types. 

We did update the cookie settings, so that will cause new visits to require logon again. 

Thanks to everyone that has logged on and grabbed the data, this was very useful in getting the security settings just right, and I am loving seeing all of the great images with this small data set. smile 

I think Thor's Helmet is just very photogenic as well!

-Bill
Helpful Engaging
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Bumping this up so folks don't miss out.
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Dark Matters Astrophotography avatar
Bumping again, as the code expiry has been changed to 4/1/2024. So get it while you can.

We are also now a Sponsor of Astrobin -- and you can view our sponsor page here, there is a one time use coupon for 20% off of one of our data sets here for you to use: https://welcome.astrobin.com/sponsors-and-partners/dark-matters-astrophotography

We have also teamed up with View into Space on their Narrowband Tutorial, that you can find here: https://youtu.be/YMvgfmPkn-g?si=sL6UBYt192lWxSAn

There s a 50% off deal on the data used in the video there too.

Lots of data available! Enjoy it.

-Bill
Armin Lukas avatar
Armin Lukas avatar
Hi,
thanks for sharing your data! Was really fun processing the images. I like the version with mostly untouched stars. Used Ha and OIII for the nebula and the
stars from the RGB image.