ngc2997 mono only - colour added

[Shiraz]

hi

was working up a new scope last night when the seeing settled below 2arc sec - best in a long time!. The new scope was nowhere near ready, so I threw the old trusty 200mm back together and aligned the bits more or less by eye in the hope I could get something before the seeing went back to normal. It was partially successful, but the scope ended up a fair way out of whack with a bit of astigmatism and some bad diffraction patterns - I had to tidy up the very messy bright stars in Startools (thanks Ivo) to get something postable.

Anyway, here is the best I could do with the luminance data - unlikely to get colour. Pity I did not have a proper system going for this lot - the seeing was great and the mount was tracking at about 0.3 arcsec RMS! Ah well... thanks for looking. Regards Ray

EDIT: added colour - the best I could get with diffraction issue.

[SimmoW]

a great example of the KISS principle. Quite beautiful.

[alpal]

Hi Ray,
that's an amazing picture considering it's a magnitude 10 target.
What telescope exactly did you use & is it from a dark site?

cheers
Allan

[gregbradley]

Sweet shot of one of my favourite galaxies. Lots of detail.
Love it.

Greg.

[David Fitz-Henr]

Yes, nice shot Ray, especially considering the rush job on the scope :thumbsup:

[allan gould]

That is a really great image, Ray. One that I would be really proud of if it were mine.
Glad you had the ability to put all your equipment together and produce something for us to see.
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Watch you talkin'bout Willis :shrug: that's excellent, the scope looks like it was working bloody perfectly ;) great result...now getting the colour right on this one is a different story though ;)

Mike

[Shiraz]

thanks you Simon. yep, KISS it is


Hi Allan. thank you. The site was fairly dark when the moon went down - it's a country town. The scope is a 200mm f4 GSO.


Thanks Greg. it sure is a really beautiful galaxy


Thanks very much David.


Thanks Allan . despite the mad scramble to get the system working, I was very pleased to get this image.



Colour hmmm - I doubt that stars will register properly - the bright ones here have been somewhat reconstituted. Have some really bad colour data from a 5 arc sec night so maybe will give it a go.

The imaging system really was far from perfect and I had to nurse it along with refocusing every few frames to keep the astigmatism buried in the seeing disk. But it worked just well enough :).

regards Ray

[Stevec35]

A very good NGC 2997 there Ray. It's a deceptively tough galaxy.

Cheers

Steve

[dvj]

The grayscale is quite lovely. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Ah, how was that done?




Yes RGB data can be crapolla and you can still get a good LRGB combine, as was the case with my recent NGC 2207 in Canis Major, after all, a common technique is to Gaussian blur the RGB before the LRGB combine anyway :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

That looks really good Ray. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Agreed, colour is an unnecessary and obsessive nuance anyway, hey John? ;)

[DavidNg]

Hi Ray,
Love your image, lots of detail from core to galaxy arms.
I would like to see what will the color look like.

Regards

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Love it Ray!:thumbsup:

How far off is your 10" ?
Can't wait to see what resolution you get from it.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Shiraz]

thanks very much Steve. it is a very pretty galaxy though - your image was great.


Thanks very much John.
yes will give it a go :)

StarTools has a couple of ways to tidy up stars. Doesn't make up any new data, but just re-arranges it so that stars are closer to circular. I don't use it often, because it can look a bit artificial, but it can sometimes rescue otherwise valuable images.


Hi Marc - thanks

Thanks David, will do.


Thanks Justin. took the first coma-uncorrected image from the 10 inch last night - the Skywatcher optics are not quite as well corrected as the GSO, but should still be way more than good enough. I expect that the resolution will be the same as the 8 inch most of the time - determined entirely by the atmosphere. However, on those rare excellent nights, the 10 inch may do a little better - we shall see. The main advantage of the bigger scope is the CF tube, which should ease focusing problems a little and is definitely very rigid and stable - should do a better job of keep things in collimation.

regards Ray

[PRejto]

That's a very impressive image for a "first light," problems or not! Bravo.

Peter

[Maurice]

Great result Ray..
What coma corrector do you use with this system?

Regards
Maurice

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes I see it now...still, not too bad really :confuse3:

Mike

[Shiraz]

thanks very much Peter.


Hi Maurice. I use an RCC1 - works pretty well at f4



well I tried the colour data - the modified stars are displaced enough to upset the registration process and it looks pretty crook. mono it will remain.

regards Ray

[RickS]

Great lum, Ray, and a lovely galaxy. Perhaps you can get some RGB another time.

[Shiraz]

Thanks Rick. have just added the best colour I could get with existing RGB data. Really need to do the whole again and properly this time ... Regards Ray

[PRejto]

I very much like that colour rendition! The muted, natural look + great resolution is great.
Peter

[gregbradley]

Lovely! A little green is in the background and the colour balance will improve with HLVG free plugin for Photoshop or simply reduce the green shadows area curves.

Its quite a deep image showing the extent of the spiral arms. This is one of my favourite southern galaxies.

Greg.

[Shiraz]

Thanks Peter - appreciate the comment.

Right again Greg - you clearly have better eyes than I. replaced image - thanks for your help. There is still some chroma noise in the background, but Pixinsight assures me that it is now balanced.

regards Ray

[gregbradley]

That looks good Ray. The galaxy is really a lot bigger than shown in most images. Your image shows that very clearly. I have noticed this time and again. Almost all galaxies are way bigger than shown in most images. A goal is to go deep enough to show that.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I had a look at this one a bit closer. I have some subs I took at my dark site. I see there are 5 or 6 bright areas in the core like large globs or something. I can just kind of see them in yours. I bet they are there. Perhaps bit of judicious use of Shadows/highlights tool would bring them out.

Greg.

[atalas]

Great looking galaxy detail!you should be pleased for now.