This galaxy is so close to us, and so big on the sky, one gets the feeling that one is seeing individual stars in it. Perhaps the things that look like stars (by the tens of thousands) are actually star forming regions - each dot being hundreds of stars - but there seem to be implausibly many of them for that. Apart from a slight difference of opinion over colour (we think it should be warmer, Lee thinks it should be bluer), our image is almost pixel-by-pixel the same as Lee's recent image: we confirm each other's work, and the dots, whatever they be, are not artifact or noise.
There are very many far-distant galaxies in the background, a couple of which have long tidal tails.
Lum: 5h30 in 30 min subs. RGB: 4h per channel in 1 hr subs, 2x2 binned.
FLI PL16803 on 20 inch PlaneWave. All robotics (electronics, firmware, software), acquisition and processing software designed built written in house by us. Like a dog climbing a ladder blindfolded, the miracle is not that it works well, but that it works at all.
Expecting 40 to 75 mm of rain over the next few days, so this will be it for this month.
Being so large on the sky, at a mere 6 million light years, its great to be able to peer so deeply into a nearby galaxy like this and yes, the background fuzzies compliment the near/far scene
As far as seeing individual stars in NGC 300, and to some extent NGC 247 et al, goes, I have also often thought, is that real stellar resolution or just "cluster" resolution..?..not sure? I am sure there a some big blue giants visible over 6million light years..?
The colour is of course a debatable thing, I think your product is probably closer to the natural mark but upping the blue does make it rather attractive too
Being so large on the sky, at a mere 6 million light years, its great to be able to peer so deeply into a nearby galaxy like this and yes, the background fuzzies compliment the near/far scene
As far as seeing individual stars in NGC 300, and to some extent NGC 247 et al, goes, I have also often thought, is that real stellar resolution or just "cluster" resolution..?..not sure? I am sure there a some big blue giants visible over 6million light years..?
The colour is of course a debatable thing, I think your product is probably closer to the natural mark but upping the blue does make it rather attractive too
Mike
Thanks for your thoughtful and encouraging comments Mike. We're sure you are right: Just fantasising, if with some particular scope we could capture a bright star at 6 light years in a hundredth of a second, the same star in NGC 300, at 6 million light years, would need an exposure a million squared times longer, or just over 3000 years. Rats!
Both yours and Lee's version are absolute stop shelf
My first instincts were that you would be able to "resolve" individual stars BUT it did get me thinking about some of the brighter stars in our galaxy could be bright compared to their surrounding. Take Alpha and Beta Ori, they're both about Mag 0 but they have an Absolute Mag of -7.2 & -8.1 respectively which is crazy bright. At a distance of 6 million lightyears it means that some of the luminous supergiants would be around the Mag 18-22 and could show up as individual stars as they're so much brighter than everything around them; they stand out.
Nothing significant to add to the worthy praise noted already.
However, the high res appears to have black rings in the cores of the larger stars? And yes, to echo Mike, a bit more blue would aid the aesthetic impact of this already very strong image.
Great to see you guys back regularly pumping out these great images again!
That's an awesome NGC 300 guys, congrats! There's a little distorted galaxy at about 1 o'clock that I'm quite fond of... shows up well in yours but it was right on the edge of the frame on mine and I had to crop it out.
Your data looks as clean as mine and you have 9.5hrs here while I had almost 21. I assume you'll be continuing to add to it and combine that Ha data? Looking forward to seeing the final product!
As for the colour, mine's almost certainly... shall we say "optimistic"? Yours is almost certainly more accurate. To be honest I'm not striving for accuracy, I'm not sure how that can be achieved... I don't even trust PCC after seeing how applying deconvolution before using it can impact the results.
Very nice. One of my favourite galaxies. Its quite photogenic.
Greg.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua Bunn
That's stunning! not overly processed, and so many background galaxies.
Josh
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Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
A stunning and beautifully processed rendition M&T!! That's a three thumbs-upper for sure!
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Originally Posted by Ryderscope
A beautiful rendition of this sparkling collection of one very large galaxy and several smaller cousins peppering the scene
Greg, Josh, Rodney, Marcus, thanks very much indeed. The "tiny" galaxies give a feel for how huge the universe is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
Both yours and Lee's version are absolute stop shelf
My first instincts were that you would be able to "resolve" individual stars BUT it did get me thinking about some of the brighter stars in our galaxy could be bright compared to their surrounding. Take Alpha and Beta Ori, they're both about Mag 0 but they have an Absolute Mag of -7.2 & -8.1 respectively which is crazy bright. At a distance of 6 million lightyears it means that some of the luminous supergiants would be around the Mag 18-22 and could show up as individual stars as they're so much brighter than everything around them; they stand out.
Thanks so much for thinking that through Colin. The conclusion is kinda nice: some rare and very bright stars would indeed be visible at that distance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
Nothing significant to add to the worthy praise noted already.
However, the high res appears to have black rings in the cores of the larger stars? And yes, to echo Mike, a bit more blue would aid the aesthetic impact of this already very strong image.
Great to see you guys back regularly pumping out these great images again!
Quote:
Originally Posted by vlazg
Agree with all, a fantastic image .i am intrigued buy the cluster of galaxies in the top left hand corner, amazing.
Andy, George: Thanks muchly guys. Most kind. We really must pay more attention to artifacts though. My biggest struggle, not just being intensely colourblind but being the guy who wrote the software, is getting the colours right. The problem is dealing with stars with burned-out cores, where the colour info is already lost at exposure time. Fiddling with the colour balance can create some bizarre effects. Some times I'm bloody close to throwing it all in, in disgust, and focusing on gardening.
That's an awesome NGC 300 guys, congrats! There's a little distorted galaxy at about 1 o'clock that I'm quite fond of... shows up well in yours but it was right on the edge of the frame on mine and I had to crop it out.
Your data looks as clean as mine and you have 9.5hrs here while I had almost 21. I assume you'll be continuing to add to it and combine that Ha data? Looking forward to seeing the final product!
As for the colour, mine's almost certainly... shall we say "optimistic"? Yours is almost certainly more accurate. To be honest I'm not striving for accuracy, I'm not sure how that can be achieved... I don't even trust PCC after seeing how applying deconvolution before using it can impact the results.
Thanks for the kind words Lee. For open clusters and globulars, I try to find a known G2V star and make it come out white. Mostly (especially for narrowband) I tend to use the "colour agnostic" approach of making the main subject look on average neutral grey, arguing that the human eye and brain are most interested in differences rather than absolutes. Sad that one can't ask a galaxy to hold a standard 18% grey card up to its chest. Even if one did, the side facing us would be black!
. 
and yes, the background fuzzies compliment the near/far scene 
...can I have your scope? 
