A couple of great moonless nights helped capture this faint rarely imaged field...in fact I am not sure this pair have been framed together before in a single image?.. at least I couldn't find an example...
In the top right of the image and located in Sagittarius, Barnards Galaxy or NGC 6822, is a barred irregular galaxy about 1.6 Million light years away. It is part of our local group of galaxies and relatively small at just 7000 light years diameter. It has prominent HII and OIII emission nebulae and although often not revealed in images of this galaxy, NGC 6822 also sits behind an extensive foreground field of very faint molecular and Milky Way cirrus dust. The strange ghostly feature lower left in this image is Sharpless 63 and is part of the extensive molecular cloud MBM 159.
6hrs of Luminance was probably the minimum to do the very faint tenuous features in the field justice under my rural-suburban transition skies...but the addition of the Ha to the red and the OIII to the green and blue, accentuated the emission nebulae in the little galaxy nicely Other images of Sh63 show it more brown red but my data seemed to lean towards a greyish-red-blue, more like the faint cirrus near Cen A
That is the finest, most convincing example of galactic cirrus that comes to mind. The cirrus looks like real terrestrial mare's-tail cirrus, the way it's arranged in clearly demarcated parallel streaks.
Barnard's Ghost is new to us. Beautifully shown.
Trish: Looks just like a cat-head thorn. Hence a very dangerous ghost.
The star colours, sharpness of the image, general processing are of course excellent. Well conceived and well carried out.
That is the finest, most convincing example of galactic cirrus that comes to mind. The cirrus looks like real terrestrial mare's-tail cirrus, the way it's arranged in clearly demarcated parallel streaks.
Barnard's Ghost is new to us. Beautifully shown.
Trish: Looks just like a cat-head thorn. Hence a very dangerous ghost.
The star colours, sharpness of the image, general processing are of course excellent. Well conceived and well carried out.
Thanks a lot guys. yes a cats thorn, true. You should shoot Barnards Ghost through the 20" I think you should have just enough FOV..?
Quote:
Originally Posted by JA
It's a lovely image in lovely skies.
It's like a big "P" written in the heavens.
Well done Mike
Best
JA
Yes, could have called it God's Pee
Quote:
Originally Posted by codemonkey
That's sensational, Mike! Love it.
Glad to hear Lee
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
A brilliant image. Love it.
Is that Barnards dwarf galaxy up near the top of the image?
Greg.
Ooooh..Kaaay...soooo, Greggles baby...you are either, takin tha piss ...or ....even aaaafter driving out and back to my observatory umpteen times, operating almost unprotected in Canberra's minus temperatures, with only beer, coffee..and whisky, to keep me warm , babysitting, crawling around and underneath my rig all night while turning my dome by hand collecting 12hours of data, then after driving home tired each night at 40km/hr early in the morning, because of thick fog and kangaroos all over the roads ...then taking days off work to sleep in, then several hours of processing until the wee hours of the morning ......you didn't read my post or what is written under the image , choosing instead, to just ignore my post, go straight to the link and skim look at the image, then proceed to ask a question that is answered in both the original post aaaand under the image.. ....
Try again mate
Ps. For anyone who has not read the full post again...aaand not in tune with the humour there, all that was of course said in complete jest..err? hence all the emoticons
Last edited by strongmanmike; 11-08-2019 at 09:20 AM.
I agree with your observations on dust colour too. There is the darker redder dusty regions and then there is the bluer stuff like various ghost nebulas and the cirrus stuff in both of the images you've posted.
I'm attaching another random part of the sky that shows the same thing. It doesn't contain the same dusty regions like in the LDN catalog but more like the cirrus stuff and it is EVERYWHERE in the images I'm currently working on. It is in every single patch of sky within 20º of the Milky Way in every direction.
A lovely counterpoint between the various elements of the image Mike. With the cirrus dust, hot blue stars, scattering of red giants across the image, ghostly dust formations and a very eclectic galaxy to boot. Strange also that a galaxy would present much in the way of OIII. I'm not surprised that additional time was required for the luminance sufficient to do justice to the waves of dust.
I agree with your observations on dust colour too. There is the darker redder dusty regions and then there is the bluer stuff like various ghost nebulas and the cirrus stuff in both of the images you've posted.
I'm attaching another random part of the sky that shows the same thing. It doesn't contain the same dusty regions like in the LDN catalog but more like the cirrus stuff and it is EVERYWHERE in the images I'm currently working on. It is in every single patch of sky within 20º of the Milky Way in every direction.
Yes that bit you have posted was the subject of my last image actually, Sh2-1/Vdb99 is a beautiful area of Scorpio. I think it contains much more and finer (?) dust (or at least dust of the right micron size) to better scatter the blue wavelengths, while some of the stuff around Barnards galaxy and particularly Cen A, is higher above the galactic plain and much more tenuous and thus fainter. There is traces of emission from the mixed in Ha though, hence the slight reddening and explains the more recently coined term Integrated Flux Nebula or IFN, rather than Galactic Cirrus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Really nice fov. I've never seen that galaxy in context in a wider field. That's a very cool framing.
Thanks Marc
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryderscope
A lovely counterpoint between the various elements of the image Mike. With the cirrus dust, hot blue stars, scattering of red giants across the image, ghostly dust formations and a very eclectic galaxy to boot. Strange also that a galaxy would present much in the way of OIII. I'm not surprised that additional time was required for the luminance sufficient to do justice to the waves of dust.
Thanks for the considered feedback Rod In regards to the OIII, a few galaxies will show OIII but rarely do imagers bother collecting it, apart from Barnards Galaxy, NGC 300 is a good example as, of course, is the LMC, M33 also springs to mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by troypiggo
Awesome framing and nice dust processing. Classic strongman image.
Thanks Troy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff45
Gobsmacking image Mike. That field of view is HUGE.
Ooooh..Kaaay...soooo, Greggles baby...you are either, takin tha piss ...or ....even aaaafter driving out and back to my observatory umpteen times, operating almost unprotected in Canberra's minus temperatures, with only beer, coffee..and whisky, to keep me warm , babysitting, crawling around and underneath my rig all night while turning my dome by hand collecting 12hours of data, then after driving home tired each night at 40km/hr early in the morning, because of thick fog and kangaroos all over the roads ...then taking days off work to sleep in, then several hours of processing until the wee hours of the morning ......you didn't read my post or what is written under the image , choosing instead, to just ignore my post, go straight to the link and skim look at the image, then proceed to ask a question that is answered in both the original post aaaand under the image.. ....
Try again mate
Ps. For anyone who has not read the full post again...aaand not in tune with the humour there, all that was of course said in complete jest..err? hence all the emoticons [/QUOTE]
Oops guilty! Yes I see it now. Man you go hard to get these images.