Beautiful Spiral Galaxy M74 in B & W

[gregbradley]

This one is low in the sky so its hard to accumulate exposure on it. Its really a northern hemisphere target.

I was happy with how just 1 hour of data turned out so I thought I would post it. A target to keep in mind next year.


http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/154241563/large regular size

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/154241563/original large size

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/154241747/large crop view

Greg.

[RobF]

Beautiful shot Greg. Thanks for posting even if altitude doesn't allow shooting for perfection. It a wonderful galaxy. I was surprised some years ago how much spiral detail was visible through my 8" with a DSLR with 5x5min shots, but this is really hinting at what might come out if you had Martin P's northern hemisphere location at your beck and call :)

[David Fitz-Henr]

That's very nice for one hour Greg; some good detail and fainter extensions captured there :thumbsup: The stars also look quite reasonable for a 180mm scope considering the low altitude for us southerners!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Rob. I think Martin may've imaged this one as I recall.



Yes they look quite good considering the low angle. It was windy as well but the scope was not affected due to the low angle. The wall blocked the wind at that angle of imaging.

Greg.

[allan gould]

Very detailed image for an hours worth of luminance, really like it.
I imaged this at Astrofest last year and found it to be a relatively easy target at the time but low as you say and I only managed B/W as well.
One I may do with the 10" again at Astrofest this year.
Allan

[RickS]

A lovely galaxy and a great image of it, Greg!

[PRejto]

Very nice shot Greg. I must say I really envy you that TEC180!!! It looks like you solved that bloating issue with the Trius/TEC180 combination. Mind sharing what the problem was?

Peter

[Shiraz]

really nice image Greg - hard work that low down. regards Ray

[gregbradley]

I started imaging it with the CDK and it looked good but there is no substitute for perfectly dark skies. So the subs from the TEC with the dark skies looked a lot better.




Thanks Rick. I'd love to go deep with this one and get a nice colour image but B & W is a nice way to present some objects I think.



Thanks Peter. The TEC180 is a hot scope no doubt about that. I haven't solved the bloating issue although its worse in some images than others. I simply have developed an effective processing technique to handle the bloated stars. I've been very tricky hehehe. I have 2 solutions I plan to try. Firstly I bought some black cardboard from the News Agent and plan to make a little baffle for the CCD window with a cutout for the sensor. And secondly try using my Astronomik filters to see if they work better. If they do I'll buy the latest gen of the Astronomiks to use with it. Thirdly I will try using another software to run the camera - pehaps the AX supplied software to see if its merely a software conflict as 2x2 binning does not display properly in CCDsoft for example.




Cheers Ray. At least it got the scope out of the wind stream!

Greg.

[Ross G]

A very good looking galaxy photo Greg.

Some nice detail there.

Ross.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ross. Its a spectacular galaxy but very low so accumulating enough data would be tricky.

Greg.

[Leonardo70]

Nice one, this galaxy is wonderful subject.

All the best,
Leo

[gregbradley]

Thanks Leo. You probably have imaged it right? Got a link?

Greg.

[Leonardo70]

To low for me ... is just a little over the mountains ad in the IL of my town but i tried, this is the link you ask:
http://www.starkeeper.it/M74.htm

All the best,
Leo

[strongmanmike]

Yeah a cool galaxy Greg, pretty good job considering the lowish altitude, I contemplated shooting it too but decided it was too low...ah galaxies, gotta luv'em :D

Mike

[Lee]

Very nice.... I think SN2013ej is still visible in your image, much fainter than last year though....

[gregbradley]

Awesome Leo, what an amazing image and its too low for you!



Cheers Mike. I'd love to give this one a decent amount of exposure time.
But even at my dark site it was limited to only a few hours available imaging time before it was too low. Even then it was very low. I was surprised it came out this well considering.



I did not know it had a SN. That's cool.
Greg.

[LucasB]

Great image Greg. It's a very pretty galaxy to which you have done justice.:thumbsup:
Lucas

[Stevec35]

Considering its low altitude Greg you have done an excellent job. I've sometimes contemplated this one myself but it would be even lower down here.

Cheers

Steve

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much Lucas!



Thanks Steve. I got a little bit of colour data as well but when I put it together it was noise city. So left it for another round of data accumulation to get a proper signal to noise ratio going.

Greg.

[Geoff45]

A good shot for such a short time Greg. As you say, it's a really beautiful spiral. Black and white is good, but it will be interesting to see the colour version.
Geoff

[gregbradley]

Next time I am at my dark site I'll continue it. Its a good target whilst waiting for some other targets to rise like NGC2997.

Greg.