Ngc 300

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Hi everyone, during the Christmas break I processed a new image of another galaxy in the sculptor, in this case it is NGC300, a galaxy rather generous in size but with a lower surface brightness than the nearby NGC253.

NGC 300 (Full Res)

As it was with NGC253 this field is also full of background galaxies which is one of the things I like most of this image. I added some H-alpha exposures to increase the visibility of the many HII regions scattered a bit all over the galaxy disc.

About 15 hours of total exposure, other details are reported on the image's link. My slow re-learning of the elaboration process continues: D

Clear skies
Marco

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Nice one Marco, I don't photograph as many galaxies as I'd like to, but when I photographed this one I gave it 30+hrs because it's so dim!

The extra Ha you added really makes those tiny nebulae pop

Nice to explore all those little feint fuzzies in the background too

Cheers
Andy

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Lovely field and excellent colour Marco, the HII regions really stand out It's a lovely image but the stars look just a tad bloated and soft looks great panned out but the close up version is where it looks like this. Was this an atmospheric effect or is this just a by product of the optical design?...or am I imagining things

Mike

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Originally Posted by Andy01

Nice one Marco, I don't photograph as many galaxies as I'd like to, but when I photographed this one I gave it 30+hrs because it's so dim!

The extra Ha you added really makes those tiny nebulae pop

Nice to explore all those little feint fuzzies in the background too

Cheers
Andy

Thanks Andy!

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Lovely field and excellent colour Marco, the HII regions really stand out It's a lovely image but the stars look just a tad bloated and soft looks great panned out but the close up version is where it looks like this. Was this an atmospheric effect or is this just a by product of the optical design?...or am I imagining things

Mike

Hi Mike, there are still some optimization I have to do, including some further tweaking of the plane perpendicularity and probably add an Atlas focuser to the imaging train (I suspect moving the secondary as I am doing is not precise enough with the critical f/ratio of the scope). However I am also struggling with the seeing in Coona, at least in my location. When I analyze my subframes for this luminance I got FWHM between 2.6" and 4.6", depending on the night. The former tenant of my dome using his TEC180 had the same issue with his scope and I also experienced mediocre seeing in the past using the TEC140 (but with the latter I was imaging with almost half of the current sampling so this wasn't a big issue).
Usually in winter I experience better seeing, for the past few weeks it was quite so-so. Than of course processing could also worsening it a bit..
If you want to give it a try I would be happy to share my luminance stack, as I said with my NGC253 post I got quite rusty on image processing..

Cheers
Marco

[Bart]

That is lovely, Marco. Top job.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Beautifully tiny stars everywhere!

[Paul Haese]

Good to see you back Marco. I love the colour. Detail is good in the core too.

[topheart]

Lovely colour and a very pleasing image Marco!
Regards,
Tim

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Lovely image, Marco, very well done! I imaged this target a bit over 4yrs ago now and wasn't happy with my result... I found it to be a tough target. I don't see any signs of struggle in your image, it looks easy!

When I analyze my subframes for this luminance I got FWHM between 2.6" and 4.6"

Wait... the luminance data for this was 2.6" - 4.6"? For real? That's a sensational processing effort given that starting point.

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Thank you all for your comments!

Originally Posted by codemonkey

Wait... the luminance data for this was 2.6" - 4.6"? For real? That's a sensational processing effort given that starting point.

Hi Lee, yes the final average FWHM of the stack was 3.35", so not really ideal. I managed to reduce it to 2.35" thru deconvolution, however still not ideal to get as many details as I wanted. As I posted before, I suspect I need to upgrade the focusing system in order to improve it and also to work a bit more on the orthogonality of the CCD plane. Unfortunately between smoke and dust followed by adverse weather conditions I could not do any imaging on the last 10 days so I hope to have some chances next days. To add a focuser on the imaging train unfortunately is going to take longer..
Clear skies
Marco