We are glad to announce MARS Data Release 2, now available for download from the PixInsight Software Distribution System.
Once downloaded, you can select the new database in MultiscaleGradientCorrection. MARS DR2 is meant to replace the DR1 database, so now you can configure MGC with MARS DR2 1.0.3 and MARS-u DR1 1.0.1, as shown below:
The new MARS database is the result of a year and a half of observations, accumulating more than 1,000 hours of exposure time. The main improvement of MARS DR2 over DR1, is the sky coverage. Now, the database covers the full Northern hemisphere in broadband and up to +75° declination in narrowband; MARS DR2 also includes Southern declination to -15° . The current MARS coverage is shown in the below figures.
MARS represents a huge effort to achieve the most objective gradient correction to date. These are the current numbers of the survey:
This image is a 18-hour exposure using a Canon 400 mm f2.8 lens. The faint residual structures in the background are stellar streams originating from the interaction between galaxies.
MARS now produces reliable results over the entire Northern hemisphere. Gradients can be now objectively corrected in images that are fully covered by nebulae:
DR2 goes much deeper than DR1. We show below some images of the survey:
The M31, M33 and Pegasus area in R filter after star removal. A close inspection reveals the M31 tidal stream flowing in the opposite direction to M110. Cirrus in Pegasus are prominent in this image.
MPW 1 planetary nebula after continuum subtraction from the G filter.
PuWe 1 planetary nebula in H-alpha.
SNR G65.3+5.7 supernova remnant in Cygnus in [O-III] after continuum subtraction from the G filter.
The Perseus and Auriga area in H-alpha after continuum subtraction from the R filter. Faint objects like the supernova remnants Simeis 147 and Simeis 288, or the huge planetary nebulae Sh2-216, are easily visible and well structured.
These images correspond to single MARS masters. When correcting gradients in MGC, we integrate all the masters covering the field of the target image to get a deeper reference image. This means that, depending on the available masters for a given field, MARS is two to six times deeper than the images above in narrowband and RGB bands, and up to eighteen times deeper using the L band. This is probably enough to correct the vast majority of the images the PixInsight community produces.
MARS will continue acquiring images for at least another year in the northern hemisphere. Now, our path involves expanding coverage using MARS-u data and starting work on the MARS-based mosaic generation tool.
Once downloaded, you can select the new database in MultiscaleGradientCorrection. MARS DR2 is meant to replace the DR1 database, so now you can configure MGC with MARS DR2 1.0.3 and MARS-u DR1 1.0.1, as shown below:
The new MARS database is the result of a year and a half of observations, accumulating more than 1,000 hours of exposure time. The main improvement of MARS DR2 over DR1, is the sky coverage. Now, the database covers the full Northern hemisphere in broadband and up to +75° declination in narrowband; MARS DR2 also includes Southern declination to -15° . The current MARS coverage is shown in the below figures.
MARS represents a huge effort to achieve the most objective gradient correction to date. These are the current numbers of the survey:
- 1347 hours of exposure time using RGB, H-alpha and [O-III] filters.
- 226 nights of observation.
- About 73000 images have been visually inspected using Blink to ensure no defective image enters the preprocessing pipeline.
- 8.4 TB of raw data.
- 12.2 TB of preprocessing data.
- MARS-1 server with 96-core CPU, 768 GB RAM and 64 TB nvme storage used for preprocessing and database generation.
This image is a 18-hour exposure using a Canon 400 mm f2.8 lens. The faint residual structures in the background are stellar streams originating from the interaction between galaxies.
MARS now produces reliable results over the entire Northern hemisphere. Gradients can be now objectively corrected in images that are fully covered by nebulae:
DR2 goes much deeper than DR1. We show below some images of the survey:
The M31, M33 and Pegasus area in R filter after star removal. A close inspection reveals the M31 tidal stream flowing in the opposite direction to M110. Cirrus in Pegasus are prominent in this image.
MPW 1 planetary nebula after continuum subtraction from the G filter.
PuWe 1 planetary nebula in H-alpha.
SNR G65.3+5.7 supernova remnant in Cygnus in [O-III] after continuum subtraction from the G filter.
The Perseus and Auriga area in H-alpha after continuum subtraction from the R filter. Faint objects like the supernova remnants Simeis 147 and Simeis 288, or the huge planetary nebulae Sh2-216, are easily visible and well structured.
These images correspond to single MARS masters. When correcting gradients in MGC, we integrate all the masters covering the field of the target image to get a deeper reference image. This means that, depending on the available masters for a given field, MARS is two to six times deeper than the images above in narrowband and RGB bands, and up to eighteen times deeper using the L band. This is probably enough to correct the vast majority of the images the PixInsight community produces.
MARS will continue acquiring images for at least another year in the northern hemisphere. Now, our path involves expanding coverage using MARS-u data and starting work on the MARS-based mosaic generation tool.
