Galaxy cluster in Virgo

[cometcatcher]

Still processing from last night. Galaxies galore in the field.
From Wiki "NGC 5364 is a grand design spiral galaxy located 54.5 million light years away in the constellation Virgo. A companion galaxy, NGC 5363, is located to the north (left in my photo) of NGC 5364 and their gravitational interaction may be influencing the peculiar morphology of the latter.
Full field at Astrobin. ---> http://astrob.in/179584/0/

299 x 30 seconds, 8" F4 Newtonian, Baader MPCC MKIII, Pentax K-5.

Stars are a bit egg shaped. Something has gone a bit out of alignment me thinks.

[rmuhlack]

that is very nice !

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Richard!

[Rex]

Got to be happy with that Kevin. Top shot mate. Nice detail in the spiral.

[RickS]

Great shot, Kevin!

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Rex and Rick!

[kosh]

Looks really good Kevin. Can't wait to have a go myself. The bright stars don't
Look too bad, to me it seems as though the funny shape is more evident on the small/faint ones? :shrug:

Goran.

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Goran. Might be tracking errors? In my laziness I haven't been guiding. I'll have to get around to that again one year.

[Placidus]

Very fine. Lovely field. Makes us want to try photographing that beautiful spiral.

Can you go longer than 30 seconds? My guess is that you'd get less grit and a smoother more detailed image if you could. At 30 seconds, you'd be getting a low signal-to-readout-noise ratio.

Best,
Mike n Trish

[cometcatcher]

NGC5363 / 5364 would look awesome in your 20 inch M&T! You must do it! I want to see it.

30 seconds... it part of an equation. Me being lazy + 8" F4 + tropics = 30 seconds. You see in 30 seconds I can get pics in cloud gaps. At F4 I can get subs in 30 seconds. The interval timer on my K-5 only goes to 30 seconds. In 30 seconds my thermal noise is low. In the tropics it's usually warm to hot even at night for 9 months of the year and limiting subs to 30 seconds helps keep noise down. Plus did I mention I'm lazy? ;)

I have done guiding with subs to 10 minutes, but can rarely get that sort of sky time here due to cloud. This year we are in drought so it would have been possible...