NGC 6744 Pavo Galaxy

[Startrek (Martin)]

This is my 2nd capture of NGC 6744 Pavo Galaxy
Magnitude 9 object at a distance of approx 25 million light years from earth
8” f5 Bintel newt on an EQ6-R mount
40 x 5 minute dithered guided subs
15 x darks
Canon 600D unmodded
ISO 800
BYEOS
EQMOD and Stellarium for Goto and tracking
PHD2 guiding ( my best guiding figures so far 0.69 to 0.90 arc sec error )
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools

Thanks for looking , comments most welcome !

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Nice capture Martin. Looks like the plus 3 hrs you've given to it this time has brought out the best in the spiral arms. A nice galaxy to photograph which is often overlooked. Was this from a dark sky site?

[xelasnave]

You are doing so well..it is great to see.
Narrow band????
Alex

[xelasnave]

Mind you I wouldn't...I have yet to do a complete proper NB capture..so much to do...maybe a modded DSLR.
Alex

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thanks Mick and Alex

I’m going to stick with the unmodded DSLR for a while yet as it’s doing a great job considering it’s restrictions and inefficiencies

I should have pushed for 4 hours + and maybe it would have been a slightly better image but it’s hard to stay awake at 3am in the morning when you have done 3 in a row

So much still to image out there !

Thanks again

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

That's a pretty good N6744 , nice colours in the stars, you certainly seem to be having a lot of fun imaging, especially from down the coast where it is nice and dark, even though you're almost at sea level at Nara - . Collecting quite a portfolio in the short time being on here.
Keep it up , love seeing them.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Looks good Martin. The structure of the spirals is really coming out. And great star colour, but is there some sort of dark artefact around the stars - deconvolution ? Or might be cause I'm viewing on a small crappy screen. Easy for an armchair critic who has never tried this object ...

[Startrek (Martin)]

Mick
Sorry, yes it was captured down at our holiday house near Ulladulla, so Bortle 3 to 4 skies

Jeff
Thanks so much, being retired now gives me time to image until late , no need to get up at 5am like I did for 40 years

Chris
Good pick up , I’d hope no one saw the discoloured halo around the stars when zooming in
Still getting my head around Startools
I’m not using Decon that much now as it is not defining the detail or reducing grain, there are other modules in Startools that work much better
I colour my Stars separately to the main object otherwise the colour bias bleeds around and through the stars which is not natural in interstellar regions
I create a Star mask which sort of works but I need to experiment a bit
I’m a bit to blame, when I find a solution in my Startools workflow I should write it down for next time but you get lazy and can’t remember how you got the solution in the first place
After using Startools for 12 months I’m still discovering useful settings and procedures

Thanks All again !!

[Ant0nio (Tony)]

Looking good Martin, I'm working on this target as well but my results fall short of the mark compared to your image, Well done .
Cheers,
Tony

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thanks for the kind comment Tony

What scope are you using on this galaxy ?

You do need some decent aperture and faster optics to pick up these dim galaxies

I definitely couldn’t get the same result out of my smaller 6” f6 newt

[LostInSp_ce]

Very nice Martin I prefer the slightly larger one.

[Ant0nio (Tony)]

Originally Posted by Startrek

Thanks for the kind comment Tony

What scope are you using on this galaxy ?

You do need some decent aperture and faster optics to pick up these dim galaxies

I definitely couldn’t get the same result out of my smaller 6” f6 newt

I'm using a 5" refractor @ F7.5 Martin, I guess the aperture makes all the difference on these targets.
F7.5 is not exactly fast either, thanks for raising that point. I have an 8" SCT , at F10 it's slower again but might be worth a shot on DSO's like this.
Cheers,
Tony

[casstony]

Nice job Martin. I enjoy viewing these galaxy shots but I've been focusing on emission nebulae since the shorter focal length suits my conditions.