Ngc 253_288

[Ryderscope]

My thanks to Alex in this post (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=138781) for giving me the idea to capture the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) and the globular cluster NGC 288 in the same field. This image taken with the Canon EOS F2.8mm prime lens and QSI 683 CCD. The front of the lens was stopped down to 46mm using adapter rings to help with avoiding ugly bits in the corner of the image. Approximate F ratio with this combination would be F4.4.

Data acquisition was approximately 20 each of HaLRGB. Ha @ 900s and LRGB @ 300s. This is also my first full run using Sequence Generator Pro for image acquisition (now there is a magic piece of software!!). Processing in Pixinsight 1.8.

A search on this forum only reveals a few postings of this combination but I couldn't see any of NGC 288 captured by itself. At magnitude 9.3 and dimensions of 13.8' I would have thought that others would have tracked it down. I note that Geoff has been bagging a few globulars of late so maybe he might just hit on this one as well :D

Link to Astrobin image here. (http://astrob.in/full/217839/B/)

Comments, feedback and critique welcome.
R

[AlexN]

Nice shot Rodney. Super wide shots like this really grab my attention.. At heart I'm a narrowfield man but there is something about seeing space in all its expansive glory that just puts a smile on my face. Nicely done.

[troypiggo]

Ripper. Love these wider shots putting several objects in perspective. What FL was the lens? 200 or so?
The adapter rings seem to have done a good job of stopping down without diff spikes.

[codemonkey]

Nice work! Turns out NGC 253 looks much better when it's small lol. This is probably one of my favourite shots of this galaxy; nice FOV.

Not sure if it's my monitor (I'm looking at this on a laptop right now), but is there a slight background gradient from top to bottom?

[RickS]

Very nice, Rodney! A great FOV, good star colour and processed so that both objects look natural.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Ryderscope]

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone. Silly me forgot to mention that the lens that I was using is the 200mm prime. For the step down adapter I used a combination of two adapters to bring the 72mm down to 46mm which works well though I still get some star distortion in the very corners of the image. I recently found a 72mm to 37mm step down adapter on eBay which I am going to try to see if that improves things even more.

On the gradient there is possibly maybe a hint of gradient depending on the monitor and ambient lighting. I can't see it when looking at my monitor at work but could see maybe a tiny hint on my monitor at home. For now I am resisting any urges to fiddle with this anymore. My subs did finish up with more gradient than expected which is maybe because I was starting the image capture a little early whilst the object was at about 30d elevation.

Thanks again all.
R

[Placidus]

Hi, Rodney,

Very nice. Fond feelings for this shot. Reminds me of early days with a finder scope, looking for 253 and getting all excited by the globular. Good to see them together.

Best,
Mike

[gregbradley]

Beautifully processed Rodney. Which F2.8 lens is this? A 50mm?

A great wide view.

Greg.

[Ryderscope]

Agreed that it is always good fun when one stumbles across another object in the same fov. Can lead off into lots other fun projects as well.



Thanks Greg, it was the Canon EOS 200mm prime lens which gives me about a 5d x 4d fov on the QSI 683. This image is less than that as I had room to crop it down some.
R