Lum 17.5 hours in 30 min subs, RGB 7.5 hours each channel in 30 min subs. Aspen CG16M on 20" PlaneWave on MI-750 fork. Field 36 min arc, 0.55 sec arc/pixel. Processing GoodLook 64, and a buttery Hedberg chardonnay.
What we especially like: the huge mix of different kinds of galaxy, ranging from what looks like a small blue dwarf irregular galaxy at 6 o'clock, through the several big, image-dominating face-on spirals, some very tightly wound, some more like a Superman "S", to the absolute host of extremely distant orange-red ellipticals. The whole story all there in front of us.
We've tried to bring out the (actually fairly subtle) colours in the various different kinds of galaxy without going too far over the top. A closely run thing, perhaps, but the biggest stars came out looking pretty.
The 17.5 hours of luminance gave us pretty good morphology on many of the small to medium-sized face-on and edge-on spirals in the far distance.
(Taking it was another story. Everything that could possibly go wrong did. Earth currents from a lightning strike just over the fence may have had something to do with it, but Sod's Corollary to Murphy's Law seems relevant. Dead computer. Replacement allegedly identical but needed new camera drivers for reasons unknown. Two power supplies failed, in different ways. A fan on one of the cameras failed. Roof position sensor touchy. Finally, fan on generator house exploded just as Trish started the generator. All working now, but for a while we were seriously considering gardening, sculpture, and knitting as hobbies.)
Thanks for the Namibian link. Their stuff is routinely excellent. Ours is more narrow field, more zoomed in, and on this occasion we're showing more detail, which is extra thrilling for us, even if it is cheating. We'd love to do a mosaic, extending toward the East, to eventually cover the same field they did. There are some great galaxies in that direction.
Fantastic shot Mike & Trish! Hundreds of tiny background galaxies coming though!
Found a couple of things I couldn't quite figure out what they were.
Hi, Colin,
Artifacts of unknown origin. We focus once per frame, due to effects of heavy cameras, off-axis guider, and 10 position filter on the sadly inadequate (and already once replaced) focuser. A side effect is problems with ghosting after-images from bright stars in the focus shot. We don't want to flush the sensor between shots, because that measurably increases noise, and we're more interested in catching faint stuff than we are in getting rid of these blobs of ectoplasmic slime (don't cross the beams). If we did more colour subs, statistical outlier rejection should get on top of them.
A stunning image there. Love it. That spiral galaxy on the bottom right is amazing. Its very Milky Way in shape. Perhaps almost identical although I imagine our MW has a slightly more barred central core but those spiral arms especially the ones that have half spiral splitting off are very similar.
Beautifully round stars at 30 minute subs is superb tracking.
A mesmerising image. One of the best images for ages.
Artifacts of unknown origin. We focus once per frame, due to effects of heavy cameras, off-axis guider, and 10 position filter on the sadly inadequate (and already once replaced) focuser. A side effect is problems with ghosting after-images from bright stars in the focus shot. We don't want to flush the sensor between shots, because that measurably increases noise, and we're more interested in catching faint stuff than we are in getting rid of these blobs of ectoplasmic slime (don't cross the beams). If we did more colour subs, statistical outlier rejection should get on top of them.
Glad to see you're looking so closely!
Best,
M & T
I got kinda lost in all those tincy wincy galaxies, hundreds and thousands of them! Gotta be difficult getting rid of every little reflection ect in those bigger systems
A wonderfully engrossing image there M&T! Beautiful! And what an effort! I wish my conditions here were compatible with such heavy duty integration times!
Magnificent image - I love these galaxy cluster images. Far beyond my capabilities.
I searched out of interest - the galaxy at 6 o'clock is called LEDA 166139. type dE D
I got kinda lost in all those tincy wincy galaxies, hundreds and thousands of them! ...
Going from mono to colour seems to help, especially with the faint irregulars (gritty blue patches) and very distant ellipticals (nice salmon colour). In mono, they are just grey blobs. On the other hand, a blob that's just in say the red channel and keeps jumping about in different subs is either an artifact or an alien.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
A wonderfully engrossing image there M&T! Beautiful! And what an effort! I wish my conditions here were compatible with such heavy duty integration times!
Cheers, Marcus
Thanks muchly Marcus. The weather has been evil. Wind 65 KPH the other night.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony_
Magnificent image - I love these galaxy cluster images. Far beyond my capabilities.
I searched out of interest - the galaxy at 6 o'clock is called LEDA 166139. type dE D
Tony.
Thanks for that, Tony. Going to have to dig out my galaxy textbook and read up on what that might mean.
Superb work Mike & Trish.
Lots of fun noodling around the hi-res image scoping out distant galaxies and the detail in those face-on spirals is delicious.
Fantastic work, M&T! I just spent 10 minutes doing an annotated version of the luminance to identify PGC166139 only to find out that Colin had already named it It looks particularly stunning in colour. Great to see some detail in even tiny galaxies.
Thanks for the Namibian link. Their stuff is routinely excellent. Ours is more narrow field, more zoomed in, and on this occasion we're showing more detail, which is extra thrilling for us, even if it is cheating. We'd love to do a mosaic, extending toward the East, to eventually cover the same field they did. There are some great galaxies in that direction.
Best,
MnT
Yes,
yours has more detail - you've beaten Namibian skies.
The left hand side has some nice galaxies in their picture so
a mosaic would be marvelous to do to capture them as well.
Crikey, Ay Carumba, Jumping Jehosophat, Holy bazillion galaxies Batman!
That's a mighty impressive image guys
Amazing star colours too - No matter what you believe, that just goes to show how amazing the universe is!
Great shot guys apart from the tight circular spiral, my favourite odd ball object is that coloured clump of seaweed right at the bottom in the middle..I assume it is an irregular galaxy of some type..?
