My best ever galaxy cluster

[tornado33]

Hi all
After watching St George beat the Sea Eagles in the NRL finals I stuck my head outdoors to see a clear sky full of stars, earlier high cloud apparently gone so dispensed with the idia of an early night and set up the 10 inch scope, this time thinking theres a few nice galaxies in the Grus area. Star Atlas Pro revealed a nice cluster, so I got to work while listening to a replay of the Newcastle Knights first grand final win :)

Image is 10x5 mins ISO 400, only uv/ir filter, and MPCC. Modded 350D camera, hand guided. This is a crop of a larger image. Before digital came along I could only dream of imaging galaxies like this from light polluted Newcastle. Darks, flats etc processed in Iris, (1 dark, 1 flat and 1 offset)

Theres too many galaxies especially faint tiny ones to try and name so ive posted a Star Atlas pro chart of the area.
I love digital imaging :)
Scott

[ballaratdragons]

I'm not sure which one I am impressed with more, Scott.

The Dragons winning (again) or your Galaxy Cluster shot!!!!!

I'll give them both a big thumbs up :thumbsup:

Both are Impressive.

GO DRAGONS!!!!!

[tornado33]

Thanks :)
Now I have to hope the Knights get up too lol.

[beren]

:thumbsup: Wish my galaxy shots would end up like that :doh: top stuff

PS: I second Kens comments ...go Dragons :)

[glenc]

Scott
I am amazed by your Grus galaxy image.:thumbsup::eyepop:

[EzyStyles]

great galaxy cluster shot scott. I can see plenty of small galaxies also .

[iceman]

I love seeing all these "best ever" shots. Means that everyone is improving their skills!

Another stunner Scott!

[Striker]

Really impresive Scott,

Have you got a higher rez version...would love to see more detail with less compression.

PS.....sorry for the knights loss tonight in advance....lol

[Lee]

Fantastic image Scott.... nice to see what can be done under Newcastle's skies too.... I'd love to see a high rez version as well if you can post it somewhere....
cheers

[FOOTPRINT]

Hi Scott,
Top line picture, and yes I agree its amazing what one can do with an off the shelf Digital Camera (modded of course) and a few years experience, and a clear night sky (I dont think we will ever see one again, cloud-rain-cloud- till the next moon, complain,complain).

regards......Jim

[sheeny]

Excellent work Scott!:thumbsup: The lure of faint fuzzies in the background always adds intrigue to a shot.

Al.

[gaa_ian]

Beautiful shots Scott, I presume they are 3 of the "Grus Quartet" cluster.

[davidpretorius]

scott, that is beautiful!

[Ric]

Great image Scott,
The main three show some good detail.

I was hoping Manly was going to have a better showing last night, Oh well theres always next year.

cheers

[rogerg]

Spectacular! I love galaxy cluster images and this is a very fine example. Very nice. Congrats! Lots of fine detail and nice colour.

:clap:

Roger.

[h0ughy]

Scott, I am rebuilding 4 computers tonight, well I have 3 left, but after seeing this I will have to do some imaging. wonderful shot mate.

GO KNIGHTS

btw would have loved to go to kulnura but I have too many things on, so i will be setting the scope up later, email me when you read this and bring over berts lens!

[tornado33]

many thanks all
heres a full res uncropped version
http://www.users.on.net/~josiah/mod350d/ngc7582%2010x5minsiso400_filtered.j pg
Yes I think this is the grus quartet of galaxies, and the last member is just off the bottom right corner, I might try and re image it to see if I can fit it in :)
Scott

[Striker]

simply suberb Scott....love that high rez shot so I can search for these faint galaxies.

[tornado33]

Thanks Tony.
It was a warmish night, theres a few hot pixels, I should really have taken more than one dark. Overall Iris does a good job with dark current noise but can miss some of the really hot pixels.
Scott

[rat156]

Fantastic shot, you insipred me to have a go at them as well.

I was surprised how bright they come up!

Cheers
Stuart

[PhotonCollector]

Geeday Scott,

That's a fantastic shot. I love those faint galaxies in the background too! Have you used STAR Atlas-PRO to determine the faintest galaxy on your image ?

If you want to use IRIS to get rid of those hot pixels you should type "FIND_HOT COSME 80" in the IRIS command window when the dark master frame is loaded. This command will find hot pixels with a value of up to 80 (you may need to increase this value to get rid of really hot pixels ).

Anyhow, again - what a great shot!

Paul M

[RB]

That's fantastic Scott.
Well done.

[tornado33]

Thanks all
Ive seen that IRIS command but wasnt really sure what to set it at. I will try 80 as a starting point now, and use SAP to check some galaxy mags.
Scott

[tornado33]

Ive managed to identify one galaxy called PGC566825 B Mag 17.88
another PGC566047 B mag 18.53 some other faint ones in the high 17,s in magnitude.
Scott

[janoskiss]

Wow! I missed this thread before. Gorgeous. Mindblowing thinking about what I'm looking at, how far, how grand, and all brought to us not by some sophistimacated multi-billion dollar space agency, but Scott and his backyard. Thanks Scott! :)

[rat156]

After a couple of days processing to get rid of some light pollution gradients...

Taken with 8"LX200GPS @ f5. Sbig ST-7XME, autoguided.
LRGB 60,15,15,15 minutes.

Cheers
Stuart

[tornado33]

Thanks everyone. Id thought Newcastle too light polluted for decent galaxy imaging, but thanks to digital technology anythings possible :)
How dark was the sky when you took your image Stuart?

[rat156]

Here's the luminance sub before I removed the gradient, judge for yourself...