M83 in the wrong season

[andyc]

Well, it'll stand out in the gallery if you post it five months after you take the pictures! I've at last finalised this one after being distracted by planets for most of the winter. My Atik has seen less use than I'd like for a variety of reasons not limited to planets, but it produces nice images when I get the chance. One nice catch was a 19th mag quasar, about 3 billion light-years away (thanks NED (http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/objsearch?objname=GALEXASC+J133529. 74-295038.8&extend=no&hconst=73&omegam=0.27&omegav=0.73&corr_z=1&out_csys=Equatorial&out_equinox=J2000.0&obj_sort=RA+or+Longitude&of=pre_text&zv_breaker=30000.0&list_limit=5&img_stamp=YES))

Acquisition details: 4 hours LRGB (120:40:40:40), flats & bias corrected. 200mm f/5 Newtonian on HEQ5Pro, Atik 460EX, MPCC, TOAG. Processed in PixInsight.

Full-sized views in this gallery (https://photos.app.goo.gl/yjkFF6hJaJOTvS0I2). I'm experimenting with Google photos rather than PBase for images as it seems nicer to flip through images and ook for resolution/zooming - any comments/criticisms welcome.

[billdan]

Very nice Andy, lot of detail in M83 and pleasing colours without too much saturation. Congratulations on the quasar, I would never had known without you pointing it out.

[multiweb]

Lovely colors in there Andy. Cool pic. :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

Just think of it as being the first M83 of the season :P
It does look pretty good though, more data will help smooth it out but it’s good all the same :)

[willik]

Very nice shot of M83
Martin

[RickS]

Very nice and subtle, Andy :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Very nice treatment of the fine dust lanes. The three distant galaxies at 9 o'clock came out well too.

[strongmanmike]

Very nice Andy, a great galaxy to image this one, maybe the colour is a tad muted but that's not a criticism, just a passing muse :)

Identifying a quasar is pretty cool :thumbsup:

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Some great detail in there Andy. Nicely done. :thumbsup: Have to agree that the colour is a little anaemic though.

[andyc]

Thanks Marcus, perhaps I'll have another play with the colours.

Ha! Guess who's image I used for some of the colour balance reference :D Though I didn't manage your levels of saturation! It was hard to pull much deeper blues and yellows out without losing some smoothness, but am tempted to give it another go...

Thanks M&T, was a nice surprise to get a bit more structure in the wee galaxies from the suburbs.

Thanks Rick!

Isn't that the truth, always! Maybe I can rack some hours up next year.

Thanks Marc!

Thanks Bill. It's becoming a habit to check out the NED around extragalactic targets, I love the concept of catching such ancient and faraway light, working on the truly cosmological scale. The recent image in the forum of gravitational lensing was quite something!

[Paul Haese]

It's a fascinating galaxy to look at and image Andy. I also think the colour saturation could be pushed a little and I also had no idea there was this object near line of site. It goes to show how much more there is to see out there.