M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy

[TR]

Inspired by Steve, and his Hamburger image, I thought I would give it a go and post my efforts from our night of imaging in the wind (understatement).

This was taken from the ASV dark sky site in Heathcote Victoria. Fortunately it is a fairly bright.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/97807083@N00/16641251764/


Terry

[strongmanmike]

Windy huh?...well, didn't stop you from producing quite a fine Sombrero Terry...excellent Smithers, eeeexcellent :thumbsup:

Haven't seen too many (any?) renditions with the Sombrero standing on its edge though ...must have blown off some cosmic Mexicans head..?

Mike

[TR]

Hi Mike, That's exactly what happened, and if you tell the young folk today, they won't believe you.

Terry

[gregbradley]

That's a really good image Terry.

Greg.

[TR]

Thanks Greg

[stevous67]

Terry, a nicely defined result, with lots of detail in the edge dust lanes, and I'm impressed by the number of surrounding galaxies you've made visible. :eyepop:

Your colouring is nice and the galaxitic glow is very bright gently fading away around the edges. Terrific :thumbsup:

Steve

[TR]

Steve, your much to kind. Colour is hard. Still working on that stuff. Now it would be really cool to get an image from their point of view. I agree with getting out under the stars, and chilling out, and enjoying with wonderful show above. I really enjoy that so much

Terry

[Paul Haese]

Nice Sombrero. Good detail in the dust lanes. Colour is a bit muted but further colour data would help you with that. Lack of guide stars really mean this is the only orientation to get a decent guide star, so I understand the orientation.

[Peter Ward]

Holy Mole'!

Now that is an excellent Mexican Hat. :thumbsup:

I suspect there is much detail in the core that you can tweak out with some judicious use of gamma/curves.

Nice one :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Very fine background with lots of nicely defined galaxies. What were the exposure details?

[TR]

Mike n Trish, thank you commenting on the background galaxies. I love looking at that sort of stuff. There in not a serious amount of data. I'm a bit light on the colour data. There are as few as 4 X 200 sec subs for colour, and the luminance is 18 X 600 sec. Many a bit bloated with the winds – I hate when that happens. But in the end, we do what we can with what we capture on the night.



Cheers on the thumbs up Peter. I'm sure with more processing, there could be more detail lurking within. But that extra processing work may wake up the residents within.....



Thanks Paul. Being a mobile imager, we work with what we have and bend to whatever the weather gods present us with. Unfortunately, this doesn't leave much time for the luxury of gathering the amounts of data we would all prefer to allow for a more straight forward processing run. I love the way all those little galaxies are aligned in different orientations. There really isn't a right way up to the universe. But those pesky guide stars are a different matter….

Once again, thank you for your comments.

Terry

[DavidU]

Great shot there Terry.

[cometcatcher]

That's a very nice M104!

[gvanhau]

Very nice.

Lots of details in there.
Somewhat curious/different lateral presentation.

Geert

[Stevec35]

Definitely a good sombrero there Terry. Lots of nice detail. Doesn't look quite right in that orientation though.

Cheers

Steve

[TR]

thanks Kevin



Geert, What's to be curious about - After all, there is no right way up in the cosmos. The orientation is dictated by the available guide stars. The FOV in the OAG is tiny, so we take what we can get with orientation. At times, there may be no star available on a potential target, and that rights it off completely. No object, or the correct :lol: orientation presented were the choices.



Steve, the orientation of which galaxy? ;) I couldn't crop it. There was so many interesting things in the field to look at. It would be a shame to loose all of that for convention.

Terry

[rustigsmed]

great sombrero Terry, I especially like the brightness.

cheers

russ

[TR]

Thanks Russ. It certainly is a bright object. It's really amazing just how far the halo extends. Combined with that halo and incredible dark ring, it certainly does add up to an amazing and memorable object.

I imaged the same target in RGB with my ED81S using an SBIG ST-8300 mono using subs of 220 sec. I got the same extended brightness in the halo region, and very similar colours.

Thanks for looking

Terry

[marc4darkskies]

That's excellent Terry!! :thumbsup: Especially when I cock my head to one side! ;) :P You've captured the extended halo really well too!

Agree that a teeny bit more processing may bring out more core detail.

Cheers, Marcus

[TR]

Hi Marcus, Thanks for looking and taking the time to comment. I may have to give it another go in an attempt in digging out more core detail. The skies certainly don't cooperate, unless you love photographing clouds. :lol:

Terry