NGC 253 a complex stella metropolis

[strongmanmike]

I have been working on my NGC 253 data so I could zoom right in to reveal the tiny features in its core and complex galactic arms.

The IIS attachment to this post is a way too close up 200% super zoom into the very core (see the bright spot in the centre, where there is certainly a super massive black hole) , just for fun but to see the whole galaxy at high resolution look here:

Metropolis in the Sky (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/148581001/original) (details under image)

To compare to the previous detail visible see the ORIGINAL FULL FRAME (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/146741808/original) image

Processing is often more fun than collection :)

MIke

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Now that's a close up!!

I can see why you named it stella metropolis .

Amazing bit of processing Mike!

Cheers,

Justin.

[Larryp]

Amazing detail, Mike. Don't think I've seen so much detail before.

[allan gould]

Sorry Mike, I can see what you were attempting but to my eye that looks seriously over-cooked. Like the widefield but would prefer less Las Vegas.

[alpal]

Nice work Mike,
it was worth processing again.
You'll be able to add to it next season.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Thanks for looking (again:whistle:) guys :thumbsup:

Allan, seriously over cooked huh? Hmmm?...fair'nuff :confuse3:, sorry you didn't like it mate, I thought it showed lots of detail :shrug: :)

[RickS]

Loved the Metropolis in the Sky image, Mike. The IIS attachment no so much. Looks better with context!

Cheers,
Rick.

[gregbradley]

Amazing resolution Mike. Very R J Gabanyesque.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

He he, yeh that attachment was just a too-close crop so that readers of the post would bother to click on the links to see the larger wider field files ;)...there are some lazy buggers on here who will only look at the attachments :lol: Still, I haven't seen such a close up of the centre of NGC 253 before..have you..? :whistle: :P

Cheers

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Yeah??...cheers Greg

Yes with the 16803 chip the AG12 provides me with everything really, both close up and wide capabilities...I am about to start use an SXVR-H694 and OAG soon ;)...that should be interesting, so stay tuned :thumbsup:

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

:lol: Aint that the truth!

It's a lovely image Mike - I like it, but it's just south of the overcooked border for me.

Cheers, Marcus

[tornado33]

I like those numerous bright red hydrogen regions. Imagine how full of bright nebulae the skies of 253 would be to any life forms living there.
Scott

[midnight]

An impressive image Mike. What stands out for me are those distant galaxies all the way out to the edge of the image at full resolution.

Coming from a DSLR background where I simply can't get anywhere near that, the skill and equipment required to achieve such fine detail is most admired. I just love these images that give the subject a sense of depth (and time too I suppose).

Cheers,
Darrin...

[gregbradley]

I just looked up that SXVR694 camera - wow. Impressive specs. Sony is the future of astrophotography for sure.

Do you know they make a backthinned CMOS sensor which has no circuitry around the pixels leaving full coverage (CMOS sensors have an area around each pixel for circuitry) - the circuitry is stacked onto the back of the sensor. They mass produce it, Exmor -R sensor.13mp.

Greg.

[Ross G]

A beautiful galaxy photo Mike.

The colours and detail are amazing.

Ross.

[strongmanmike]

Sooo... is south on the good side of over cooked or the bad side...:question:



Yes, I guess you're right Scotty, glad you found something interesting about the image too, actually for me it is those amazing rising gas/dust (?) tendrils visible across the galaxy disc that amaze me, one of my intentions of (over cooking :rolleyes: :lol:) was to make these stand out :thumbsup:



On ya Darrin, glad you enjoyed the view :)



Interesting, will you be getting one of these for yourself then..? :whistle:



Cheers Ross, that was my intention :thumbsup:.

Mike

[Poita]

That is a serious amount of colour.

Not sure if it is the compression but the background has some severe gradients/blotchiness on my machine?
I bit lumpy/sharp for me but it is a look I haven't seen before. I'm jealous of your aperture/resolution!

[strongmanmike]

Which image version are you referring to?

Mike

[naskies]

Very nice, Mike - beautiful saturation and amazing detail!



I can also see visible bands of grey extending from the galaxy with visible pixellation. Assuming it's not there in your uncompressed work file, it seems like it may be a JPEG compression artefact?

http://ic2.pbase.com/o2/29/633929/1/148581001.fNswt2a8.NGC253APtightcro pcombo1500.jpg

[strongmanmike]

Yes some slight rasterisiation remains in that area from the aggressive stretching and curves used to to reveal the ultra faint outer halo. Because it resulted from a very early stage in the processing (last year :lol:) I haven't gone back and rectified it as I considered it a very minor blemish :)

As for the severe gradients/blotchiness that Peter mentions, I think he is refering to the galactic cirrus dust visible across the fuller frame. It is really faint stuff in this area, much fainter than say the Cirrus dust around M82 and M81 for example, so I had to really push the data to get it to show up and it was only the fast 12" optics that allowed it with this relatively modest amount of exposure :thumbsup: the rather vague blotchiness visible in some areas of the wider field versions is due to the low amount of colour data used to compile the image and again I wasn't too phased by it as it was really other qualities of the image that I was trying to showcase...I think I am a little forgiving of minor cosmetic blemishes in order to reveal that which is seldom or never revealed in other images :thumbsup: I will be able to push harder like this with more success once longer exposures are possible (even with a 12" F3.8) I just need to get my observatory setup to facilitate it :doh:

Mike

[h0ughy]

Mike - well i never - superPhotonman --in Metropolis!!!

its an interesting mix of stuff in there - huge field

[jjjnettie]

:) Loads of detail there Mike.

[cybereye]

Mike, that is amazing!! :thumbsup:

[allan gould]

Mike
I respect you work and abilities tremendously but I cant help comparing it to Gabany's work which I also admire (and Greg Bradley also compared his work to yours in this thread). I have attached his image in what I hope is a fair comparison about what I meant yours appeared too Vegas for my tastes. Your detail is there but I still feel the colour is too harsh.
Hope you see it as a personal taste from my point of view and I know others will disagree.
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Hi Allan

Interesting you bring this image up actually, although I don't review images of what I am processing before starting on my data, I do often look afterwards to compare. Of course I looked at RJ's work in this after the fact perusal and indeed I remember when he first did it, I was in back and forth direct email contact with him at the time about it even and I recall saying that I thought it was the second best NGC 253 image ever taken by an amateur (THIS (http://www.spiegelteam.de/ngc253.htm) is the best IMO... the seeing quality is everything!) ...I can see them well in my image but how RJ revealed those rising streamers in the way he has is beyond me...quite spectacular.

On your instigation and for a more direct comparison though, I have zoomed in, cropped and shrunk my NGC 253 down to match the field of the GaBany version you posted, see it HERE (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/148790014/original). Now of course, remember RJ's image was taken using an awesome 20" F8 RC on a PME, in a dome, 7000ft up in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico in the US....mine was taken using a 12" F3.8 from outside Canberra at 2000ft in a completely exposed environment..although the wind wasn't really a problem during the data collection for this image and the seeing was quite reasonable too (compared to Newcastle :rolleyes:) :prey: :)

Like you say I really think it comes down to personal preference and what the imager is specifically trying to reveal or display. I was really shooting for the very faint outer halo around the galaxy which is so seldom visible in images of this galaxy (inlcuding RJ's), in fact I can only find a couple of others that reveal it so obviously, I wanted to show the background galaxies and the galactic cirrus in the region too (not noticeable in this tight crop FOV) then I wanted to give the galaxy itself some colour impact...remember I do love blue :love: and highlight the plethora of HII regions . Of course, as you say not everyone will be 100% happy with my colour choices but that is the nature of the game we are in :)

It is an interesting discussion, and good on you for taking it beyond "nice image" or even "Too Vegas" :lol:

Mike :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers guys, just for having a look (again) :P :thumbsup:

Mike

[allan gould]

Mike
I was quite aware of the image by Volker Wendel and Bernd Flach-Wilken but personally I would place it behind yours for detail and a third behind Gabaney's image, which I placed at numero uno. And thats because I liked his detail combined with colour processing.
Its fine as I realised you were trying for the faint halo of NGC253 but I think you got that better in a deep refractor image some time ago (if my memory serves correctly). If its faint detail - you are starting to catch the Gabaney streamers but of course a bigger scope and better seeing will make all the difference. Take your present scope to altitude and it would scream.
You certainly achieved the emphasis of Ha and outer young stars :lol: ;) and its still better than anything Ive done.
Its a "nice Vegas image" :thumbsup:
Good on you for doing it your way
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Actually no, I have never caught even a scrap of the faint halo before (very few have) hence why I made this the first object using the AG12 from my new dark sky site outside Canberra ;) :thumbsup:

Mike

[allan gould]

Mike
My bad. What I was remembering was your image http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/147138890/original
from October 2012 that was an inverted image to show the stellar halo around NGC253. I thought that it was taken with your refractor and didn't realize it was with the new 12" and that you had Sidonio'ed the data for this posting.
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Yep, all THESE (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/sculptor_galaxy_ngc_253) are composed from the same data set taken on first light from Wallaroo :D...you know me :lol: The faint Milky Way cirrus is most obvious in the wider field crops and the faint galaxy halo is clearly visible in all versions, just not obvious in the close in Island Universe crop since the entire space around the galaxy in this framing is full of halo and I used slightly different processing as it was detail that I was after in this version not depth, so the halo just looks like a milky background :thumbsup:

Mike

[silv]

hey Mike :)

so this gorgeous image was your entry to the 2013 contest which then lead to the >> discovery (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=141268)?

The blue smudge is so prominent in this image that I was thinking:

would it be worth it for you adding a step in your postprocessing workflow to let the all objects be registered/named that are visible in your fullframe-fast-scope-imaging-Tardis?
(And if an object can not be named by the software, then >Bingo< again.)

I am flabbergasted by your discovery.
And in absolute awe of your blue-ish processed NGC 253.
Beautiful!

Silv

[strongmanmike]

Ha ha, yeah that's her Silv :thumbsup: I did quite a few different processing versions actually and different crops, the eventual entry in the ROG competition was THIS ONE (https://www.flickr.com/photos/strongman/8749856291/in/dateposted-public/)

Hey, what you suggest might be worth a try...I have never done this myself so not sure of the exact process :question:

Thanks again for your kind words :thumbsup:

Mike

[silv]

dcrowson in this >>thread (http://www.astronomyforum.net/astrophotography-image-processing-forum/185748-labeling-pointing-out-objects-image-help-print.html) describes one way and links to a tutorial PDF.

I'm sure other IIS members use and know different ways of labelling images.

and who knows? you might be the one to discover the tenth planet this way?

btw: the smudge is so prominent in your image in #1 (and still in the blue-reduced version for the contest) because you like blue so much.
lucky you! that's going to help you with more discoveries, as well. you'll see :)

[AG Hybrid]

Your full frame image is absolutely amazing. Even the little extra galaxies are top notch too.

[Fabiomax]

Hi Mike,

first my congratulations to the discovery of the galaxy in the field. I took example from your work and I have sent my picture to Delgado .... unfortunately there was nothing new :-)
Looking at your picture I think is really exciting as 1120 of focal and 1.6 sec / pix you can have, in particular seeing conditions, a very interesting details. I also think that having a large focal obviously helps, but maybe it is an underestimation of the potential of a focal not too high to get very good results. For example Bernhard Hubl with a similar focal got really interesting images. I always follow your beautiful work.
Cheers,
Fabiomax