Centaurus A - 7th March

[Screwdriverone]

Hi all,

Well, a rare event in Sydney.....a CLEAR night saw me attempt to capture 2 hours of exposures from Centaurus A, a glorious lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. One of the brightest X-ray and radio sources in the night sky, Centaurus A lies between 10 and 16 Million Light years away. Failure of my guiding program after 45 minutes saw me only capture 7 x 5 min subexposures of the planned 24, so this represents only 35 mins worth of data from the Atik 314L+ and the 200mm Newtonian reflector. Its a start, one I hope to get more data on at Ice In Space Astro camp in April.

I was playing around with the drift alignment, but wouldn't you know it, PHD had conniptions and decided to go all haywire on me during the sequence so I had to throw out 17 subs which were all over the shop, not drifted or eggy, but zig zagged.....I wasn't happy.

No darks, flats or bias used. Just the lights ma'am....;)

Processed in Nebulosity, PS CS3, Startools and the kitchen sink, just for good measure. :)

Larger, 5.2Meg non compressed version here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/7jwi091iog8aqy3/Centaurus%20A%207th%20March.png):

Comments, tips and critiques are welcome.

Cheers

Chris

[strongmanmike]

Great start Chris, all the good bits showing through there :thumbsup:

Oh and these things are sent to test us...I am battling wind and high cloud as we speak...aaand producing mostly rubbish... :rolleyes: :sadeyes:

Mike

[prokyon]

Funny (rather sad), I am sitting at the other side of the world and have the same weather problems. Almost no clear nights.
Good start and I wish you many clear nights for finishing.

[Larryp]

Coming up nicely, Chris

[Rod771]

Looking good so far Chris :thumbsup:

Lets hope the clouds cant find Lostock :prey:

[Ross G]

Hi Chris,

Nice photo from so little exposure.

Ross.

[Shiraz]

looks like you are really enjoying the camera Chris - remarkable result for 35 minutes. regards ray

[asimov]

Lovely work Chris!

[Sarge]

Nice one Chris. I did 18 mins with darks and bias and didn't come near yours. Looking forward to the final result.

Clear skies

Rod
:D:D

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Mike,

Thanks mate, it's good to keep progressing, especially with such a gap since the last night out....

I am not sure what the issue was with PHD but it seemed to crash and go "not responding" which caused wiggly corrections for some reason. I should have checked it earlier, but live and learn I suppose...

Cheers

Chris

[Screwdriverone]

Cheers Laurie, :)



Thanks Prokyon, it has been depressing this crappy rain every day (and night). I can't wait to grab some more for this one.

Cheers



Sounds like you are going too Rod? Look forward to catching up if you are. (anyone else coming along?)

Thanks for the comments :)

Cheers



Good little camera this one Rod! I am loving it :D

I was pleasantly surprised too, now I have DSS tamed, its much easier to reproduce good results from different data sets.

Cheers



I think the 5 minute subs helped there Ray, I was a tad disappointed to lose 85 minutes to spazzy guiding. :(

Thanks mate :)



Thanks John!, glad you liked it ;)



Dont need no stinking darks with this pearler of a camera Rod! Tee hee hee hee hee! I am a fan boi me....! :D

Thanks for all the nice comments guys. :D

Cheers

Chris

[jakob]

Very nice result!
Lots of detail and from Kellyville!!!!!

[Screwdriverone]

Thanks Jakob.

Kellyville POWER!!!!! I could do without some of the skyglow, but I can't ask for more from this. :)

Thanks Neighbourino! ;)

Cheers

Chris