Not often imaged barred spiral galaxy NGC1398

[gregbradley]

A bit of a faint one but a really interesting galaxy. Love the shape of this galaxy. Barred central core, ringed with some dust clouds evident. Lots of background galaxies. An interesting area.

CDK17 and Proline 16803 on an AP1600. LRGB 350 60 60 80 minutes all 10 minute subs.

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/164828188/large

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/164828188/original large size

Greg.

[Somnium]

well don Greg looks fantastic

[alpal]

Hi Greg,
a beautiful face on spiral that I hadn't seen before.
well done

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Nice to finally have some dark skies for that beast huh?? ;)..and it shows!
Its not bad but needs better colour I recon but I do love the details in this baby, thats what makes this spirograph looking galaxy shine, nice :thumbsup:

That M74 though is reeeally lookin good, if you can get some good colour into that, it should be a purler Greg :)

Mike

[Geoff45]

Nice photogenic galaxy Greg. Nicely captured.

[FranckiM06]

Wow, it is wonderful image and very nice galaxy. I didn't knew it
Franck

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
that's personal choice -
I would have boosted the colour in LAB mode too
with a tiny bit extra Red & Green &
also
darkened the background slightly.

cheers
Allan

[gregbradley]

Cheers.




Thanks Allan.



Thanks Mike. I did some more work on it this morning. Yes the colour was rather weak. Not sure why it seemed to lack. Anyway I have managed to boost it without raising the noise too much. I don't think its a particularly colourful galaxy in the first place but yes the original did lack.

I have colour for M74 and its been on my want to image list for over a year now so I was happy to get some good data. Dark skies do make all the difference.



Thanks Geoff.



Thanks Fanck. Its not often imaged as its not very bright.



Thanks Allan. I have boosted the colour and darkened the background a little. I have in the past tended to make the backgrounds too dark but I went too far the other way here! oh to get balance! Thanks for the feedback.

Greg.

[topheart]

Nice galaxy Greg!
Thanks,
Tim

[Atmos]

Gorgeous spiral structure! Has an interesting central barred region as well. I do wonder whether it has had a violent past (recentish history) or if it is an AGN... some research may be required :)
Would darkening the background a little further increase the contrast further? I am viewing on my iPhone right now so it isn't exactly the best of screens and lighting ;)

[el_draco]

Lots of faint galaxies as well. Excellent image!

[Slawomir]

I have not seen this galaxy before, and it is so pretty! VERY nice image Greg :thumbsup:

[atalas]

Nice work Greg:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Tim.



It is an unusual shape. The barred central core seems quite bright and the outer rings are an unusual elliptical shape/ ring shape. It possibly could have the background darkened a tad. I left a bit of room to the left of the histogram rather than shift the blackpoint to the start of the histogram which can often be cut off when you do colour processing.



Thanks. I like these background galaxies that can show up in these types of images.



Thanks Suavi. Its not very bright so probably why its not often imaged.



Cheers Louie.

[gregbradley]

Revised the image again as the background still was able to be made darker and I was able to extract more sharpness out of the data. Same links.

Plus I added a crop view:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/164828191/original

I think this image is maxed out now without further data.

Greg.

[p1taylor]

very nice galaxy.

peter

[Atmos]

:thumbsup:

[alpal]

Hi Greg,
that's better -
you have pulled close to the maximum out of the data now.
The galaxy even looks bigger as the halo now stands out.

cheers
Allan

[RickS]

Fantastic detail and nice and deep, Greg!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Peter.



Cheers.



Thanks Allan. Yes I think its pretty close to maxed out without more data.



Thanks Rick. I've been wanting to image this one for a while.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

In my opinion this is one of the best images you have produced with this scope. The fine detail is very good, with generally good star shapes. The back ground looks good with lower noise levels and nil smoothing from what I can tell. Perhaps more saturation via a mask will give you a more vibrant image Greg, but that is your choice.

[Placidus]

Absolutely beautiful galaxy, Greg, excellently captured.

I think the processing is already very fine and doesn't need changing, but the histogram suggests that you could up the zero point to darken the background a tiny bit more without losing any data.

Lovely work!

[strongmanmike]

Looks good Greg, some good detail there...especially compared to your earlier effort with the BRC (http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/109635968/original) :eyepop:

Would still benefit from a wee colour boost but an enjoyable galaxy shot none the less, nice job :thumbsup:

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Excellent image Greg! :thumbsup: One of your best in recent times I think!

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much Paul high praise.


Cheers mike, much appreciated.



Hehe a blast from the past. I remember that run. I had 9 out of 10 night perfectly clear and imaged a lot of galaxies!



Thanks very much Marcus. Appreciated.

Greg.

[Stevec35]

One of the best images I've ever seen from you Greg. Nice work!

Steve

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much Steve. I appreciate the compliment.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

...St Bradley's de Atacama

[cometcatcher]

That's a lovely image.

[gregbradley]

Hehe, you gotta remember those times they help make up for the far more common clouded or rained out times!



Thanks for that.

Greg.

[multiweb]

One of your best shots Greg. Superb. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Cheers Marc.

Greg.

[Ross G]

A beautiful galaxy photo Greg.

Well composed, sharp and great colour.

I love it!

Ross.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ross. I am happy with the final version. It took a while to get there.
I have some more galaxy images ready for final tweaking (the longest part of processing!).

Greg.