NGC7424 - a barred spiral in Grus

[RickS]

Data captured at the Qld Astrofest in 2013.

Scope: Ceravolo C300 @ f/9 = 2760mm FL, Atlas focuser
Mount: AP900
Camera: U16M
Filters: Astrodon E series Gen 2 LRGB
Guiding: Lodestar / MMOAG
Image scale: 0.67 arcsec/pixel
Exposures: 20x600s R, 13x600s G, 17x600s B, 44x600s Lum (15.66 hours)
Processing: PixInsight

High res at Astrobin (don't forget to click the full res icon if you feel like pixel-peeping): http://www.astrobin.com/full/229132/0/

This is a repro and a nice improvement over my original 2013 version. If I could go back in time I would slap myself for only taking 600s subs.

Constructive comments appreciated, of course!

Cheers,
Rick.

[gregbradley]

That's a very nice rendition of this galaxy. I've imaged this one and was not happy with the results. Its a tough one and quite dim.

You've done very well there.

Greg.

[Slawomir]

Hi Rick,

I have tried RGB imaging only a handful of times and results were below mediocre, so I sold my filters. You hit bullseye both with balanced colours and how structures are presented within the Galaxy. But what really draws my attention in your image is the stars - a voice in my head whispering "buy quality RGB filters and learn how to add RGB stars to your images" has been born...

10/10 from me :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Thanks, Greg!



Thanks, Suavi. I'm sure you'd be a whizz in RGB very quickly if you put your mind to it!

[RobF]

That one took a while to hatch :)

Great going Rick. Love what the beast does with these faint galaxies.
Would you have done anything different now 2.5 yrs later with collection/processing out of interest?

EDIT: D'oh - see you've already said about sub length.

[Placidus]

Very nice colour balance showing squillions of distant red galaxies, and nicely showing the difference in colour between spiral arms and core.

Getting such detail, especially all the background galaxies, under the shoot from the hip conditions of a star party is very impressive.

[Shiraz]

yep, it is a dim one. Impressive result, particularly the colour saturation.

FWIW, I was also recently playing around with some old data on this and was struck by how few photons there were - just enough to say that there was something in the outer reaches, but not enough to get much above the noise. Any new tricks on noise reduction?

[RickS]

Thanks, Rob. With the C300 @ f/9 and the U16M, 900s Lum and 1200s RGB get me good results under dark skies. The RGBs aren't always sky limited at that length but I hate throwing away 30 minute subs and I can hit the colour data pretty hard with noise reduction.



Thanks, M&T!



Thanks, Ray. I used MultiscaleLinearTrans for the noise reduction this time around and it works well. There's a new MureDenoise script that looks very good too.

[Stevec35]

A very nice image of a not very easy galaxy Rick

Cheers

Steve

[RickS]

Thank you, Steve.

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes i remeber this one Rick, i did it around the same time i think? I'm still on board the Aria drinking too much and just looking at it on my phone but it looks to be an improvemnt but i recal it was a good image already :thumbsup:
Mike

[plantnerd]

A stunning little spiral galaxy, the opalescent colours are just perfect excellent work

[RickS]

Thanks, Mike. I've learned a few things about processing colour in the meantime so I feel I did a nicer job on that. It probably looks more like yours than it did before, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery :lol: Enjoy those drinks! Free, I hope?



Thanks, Luis.