Centaurus A - again!

[markas (Mark)]

This one is a 3.4 hour RGB grab taken Monday night. The original image was cropped from 52' square to 22' x 20'. Processed in Pixinsight, finished in PS.


At the next opportunity, I will shoot a few hours of L, which I hope will drag out a bit more detail.


Monday night was fairly clean: seeing 1.8" - 2"; best SQM ~21.2. Almost no surface wind.

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Another lovely Cen A! Great job Mark. It's pretty ****ing amazing what everyone's pumping out these days.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Excellent rendition Mark, would love to see a higher res

[gregbradley]

That's superb and only 3.4 hours and no luminance? Wow, you really got a lot out of that imaging session.

What is the scope and camera?

Greg.

[markas (Mark)]

Lee, Colin and Greg,


Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated.


With the rotten weather we've been getting, I don't know when I'll get the needed Luminance frames......



Greg, the telescope is a custom 300mm RiDK f/8 unit from Officina Stellare, and the camera is a Moravian G4-9000. (The KAF 9000 has never been very popular, probably because of its RBI characteristics. However, it has a high QE for a CCD, 110,000e- full well, and 10e- RN. Pixels are 12micron)



The system resolution of 1"/px is a good match for the seeing I get at the Macedon site.



Mark

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by markas

Lee, Colin and Greg,


Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated.


With the rotten weather we've been getting, I don't know when I'll get the needed Luminance frames......



Greg, the telescope is a custom 300mm RiDK f/8 unit from Officina Stellare, and the camera is a Moravian G4-9000. (The KAF 9000 has never been very popular, probably because of its RBI characteristics. However, it has a high QE for a CCD, 110,000e- full well, and 10e- RN. Pixels are 12micron)



The system resolution of 1"/px is a good match for the seeing I get at the Macedon site.



Mark

Wow, that is a serious scope and camera combo. I nearly got a Proline 9000 once. Do you dither to get rid of RBI or use the IR flushing or nothing?

Greg.

[topheart]

Well done Mark!
Nice scope!!
Cheers,
Tim

[Paul Haese]

Very nice Mark. Great colour and detail.

[markas (Mark)]

Greg,
I use 15 px dither.

Preliminary setting up - PA (system is on a rollabout, not in an observatory), and AF - are done with the sensor uncooled.
If there are very strong stars in the vicinity of the target, I avoid meridian flips. If all else fails, (which almost never happens) there is always the context-aware healing brush in Photoshop as a last resort


Mark

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks, Tim. The scope performs very well, and seems to be very stable with change in temperature. Flexure in the image train must no doubt be present but I've not been able to detect it.

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks Paul. I appreciate your comments.
Mark

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

A solid and colourful Cen A Mark

Mike

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks, Mike

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

That's astonishingly good for the time. The relativistic jet is very clear.

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks for the comment, M&T. The camera/OTA combination is a very fast acquirer of data - just have to manage the RBI!


Mark

[PeterSEllis (Peter)]

Hi Mark,
Nice clean sharp shot, a good one for your collection. Seeing 1.8" to 2", it doesn't get much better than that in Melbourne.

Peter

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks Peter. It was one of the better nights for seeing at my Macedon site, which is generally pretty dark (SQL typically 21.3 -21.6), but seeing is usually around 2.5".


Mark

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

That's a really good image Mark!

YAY for Officina Stellare!

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks Marc - certainly we agree on OS


Mark