NGC4038 - Antenna Galaxies

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

I am a little late to the table with my rendition of this very picturesque pair of interacting galaxies for this season. This of course has provided me the opportunity to 'stand on the shoulders of giants' who have come before

A number of challenges were presented during image capture with some very pesky gradients which would appear to have resulted from a nearby mag 5 star plus some seriously ugly seeing. I finished junking all of the luminance subs but I don't think that the image suffered because of it.

Given the dynamic range difference from the core to the outer arms/antenna, it was always going to be a challenge trying to capture this in a 5" refractor with a 1.5 degree FOV. To help with alleviating this, a little over 60 subs per channel were captured at 10 minutes per exposure. This has helped with achieving a reasonable SNR.

Link to image on Astrobin here.
Click on image in Astrobin for larger resolution.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Wow! You've done an astonishing job! The Astrobin version kept us amazed for ages. Sharp as a pin and very deep. The foreground stars sparkle like jewels. The background is very clean, but the faintest details are all there.

Best,
MnT

[PeterSEllis (Peter)]

Hi Rodney,
That is a lovely shot of NGC4038/4039, a nice one to add too your collection, it doesn't get much better than that.

Cheers
Peter

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Originally Posted by Placidus

Wow! You've done an astonishing job! The Astrobin version kept us amazed for ages. Sharp as a pin and very deep. The foreground stars sparkle like jewels. The background is very clean, but the faintest details are all there.

Best,
MnT

Originally Posted by PeterSEllis

Hi Rodney,
That is a lovely shot of NGC4038/4039, a nice one to add too your collection, it doesn't get much better than that.
Cheers
Peter

Thanks MnT, Peter. There was a lot of time spent on this one both in data collection and processing.

[gregbradley]

A very beautiful image. That turned out superbly.

Greg.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Very nice result on this famous pair Rod, well done

Really quite an amazing tango gong on there huh?

Mike

[markas (Mark)]

Great image
Very clean and sharp!


Mark

[Andy01 (Andy)]

That's come up well Rodney, lovely image

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

A very beautiful image. That turned out superbly.

Greg.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Very nice result on this famous pair Rod, well done

Really quite an amazing tango gong on there huh?

Mike

Originally Posted by markas

Great image
Very clean and sharp!


Mark

Originally Posted by Andy01

That's come up well Rodney, lovely image

Thanks Greg, Mike, Mark & Andy. They do certainly make for a great visual treat and are an excellent example/display of interacting galaxies.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Nicely done Rodney! Those faint arms can be a challenge but you've rendered them very well!

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Nicely done Rodney! Those faint arms can be a challenge but you've rendered them very well!

Thanks for that Marcus. The additional effort with exposure times certainly helped to catch the fainter details.

Clear skies.

[Paul Haese]

Nice image Rodney, 32 hours is very good. Colour is rather pleasing too.

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Nice image Rodney, 32 hours is very good. Colour is rather pleasing too.

Thanks Paul. I did need to push out the acquisition time with this object and it definitely helped.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Very nice job Rodney. You should be happy with that!

[Bart]

This is a lovely image, seems nicely processed and good colours.

[topheart]

Very very well done!!
Cheers,
Tim

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Very nice job Rodney. You should be happy with that!

Originally Posted by Bart

This is a lovely image, seems nicely processed and good colours.

Originally Posted by topheart

Very very well done!!
Cheers,
Tim

Many thanks lads, much appreciated.

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

I am most pleased that this image has won the Open Deep Space section of the 2020 "Capture the Cosmos - Under the Warrumbungle Sky" competition. We all put a lot of hard work and time into capturing and processing the data for our images so it is nice to win an award as well.

Clear skies,
Rodney

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Congratulations Rodney, well done! 😊

[Peter Ward]

Nicely done Rodney...and congrats on the Coona win....was the image taken from Coona or Bathurst?

Either location would run rings around Southern Sydney...but last time I checked Mt Panorama was not under Coonabarabran skies...hence I figured the Astrobin location didn't make much sense.