A pair of spiral galaxies in Indus

[strongmanmike]

After 10 months of almost exclusively using the 4deg X 4deg wide field FSQ106EDX4-PL16803 combo, I felt like doing some high resolution imaging again :)...so I changed over to the AG12 this week (Just a 10sec USB cable switch around and a couple of different boxes ticked in the camera control software..easy!) and hit some galaxies :D

NGC 7125 and 7126 in Indus are 160 Million light years away, so are fairly faint (especially NGC 7126 - the upper galaxy which has a low surface brightness) and both quite small on the sky too at under 3 arc min in size each (a far cry from what I have been hitting with the FSQ-FLI setup in recent times :eyepop: :lol:). There aren't many shots of this pair on the net which is surprising really, as they do make for a nice photogenic pair of spiral galaxies. I like the faint sweeping outer arms of NGC 7126, they remind me of NGC 1300 in Eridanus or NGC 1566 The Spanish Dancer galaxy in Dorado. There are plenty of back ground and much more distant galaxies sprinkled throughout the field too.

Conditions weren't too bad either and it was fun to be back in the higher resolution seat again...hope you enjoy the view :)

NGC 7125 / 7126 in Indus (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/167989332/original) (full frame view)

Cheers
Mike

[Placidus]

Magnificent!

A beautiful contrast between the two galaxies brought out by careful processing: one has tightly wound but faint spiral arms and a very bright warm coloured centre, the other has a small central bar and loosely wound arms with intense star formation.

As you said, the field is studded with distant galaxies and is pretty and fun to explore.

Extremely deep for 9 hours, suggesting dark skies and excellent processing.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thum bsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Mike (or is it Trish?...I'm guessing Mike :question:...) Yes, I really liked the out come, a lovely field, was well worth the two work nights I went out to my observatory and the barely 4 hrs sleep each night before going to work.... :lol:

Mike

[Slawomir]

A beautiful image Mike. I missed your fantastic images of less known gems of the nightsky - please keep them coming :)

[Geoff45]

Good one Mike. Good detail for such small objects. I'll miss the wide fields though.
Geoff

[strongmanmike]

Ha ha yeah sorry guys...I'll probably try and mix it up a bit more now that the novelty of the beautiful FSQ and the wide fields, has waned a little ;) The two systems are so easily switched between and both work essentially perfectly, it sure is a cool duo to have at my fingertips :thumbsup:

Mike

[Atmos]

Nice galaxy duet Mike :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Yeah it is huh?...love galaxy pairs and trios :)

Mike

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
that's a good result on a very dim pair of galaxies.
I wanted to know more.


It seems that NGC 7125 is 163.4 Mlyrs away
https://in-the-sky.org/data/object.php?id=NGC7125
and NGC 7126 is 134.3 Mlyrs away.
https://in-the-sky.org/data/object.php?id=NGC7126
So we can assume they are not an interacting pair.

This was the only other good picture I could find:
http://server7.wikisky.org/imageView?image_id=803

Hubble did take some data but not of the entire NGC 7126
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_7126_hst_08597_606.png


cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Yes saw those in my search too Al, I would love Jim Riffles 18" F2.8 fork mounted Centurion 18 (https://www.astromart.com/classifieds/astronot-classifieds/show/famous-centurion-18-discoverer-of-comet-elenin) beauty!..in fact I know his folio of work with that scope well, in the early 2000's it was some of the best amateur imaging being done in the World and he had one located at Leyburn QLD that took that picture.

Mike

[alpal]

Thanks Mike,
I didn't know that.
He certainly wasn't shy about leaving noise in his picture
yet it still looks great - a lot of detail & he's gone deep.


cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Yes, noise in images is a little overated IMO but still, it would have been better had he collected a bit more data I am sure. Having sad that I have captured more galaxy extensions than he did and smoother, so more exposure on a smaller slower (not much slower F2.8 vs F3.8) scope can still work :thumbsup:

Mike

[cometcatcher]

Nice pair Mike! I also like looking around the rest of the field with cute background galaxies. There is one lot on the lower left that kind of looks like gravitational lensing. But it probably just the position of them.

[strongmanmike]

Yeah I think so, capturing faint gravitational lensing arcs might be theoretically achievable with my rig and location... but rather difficult I'd say...:)

Mike

[troypiggo]

Been enjoying your wide field stuff, but I reeeaaaaally enjoy your obscure tiny stuff - the little galaxies and planetaries. Looking forward to more... :)

[strongmanmike]

Yeah yeah...there will be some more coming ;) :lol:

Mike

[gregbradley]

A couple of faint fuzzies eh Mike? Got the itch for some galaxies. A good image, really a 40 hour job but it still turned out well.

Pretty cool you can just quickly change a few leads and you're good to go.

Greg.

[RickS]

A beautiful result, Mikester. Needs a few worms though ;) More seriously, good to see you doing high res imaging again just as I've gone wide-field. Ying/Yang? :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Naaah as a non automated imager, me never gunna spend that amount of time on this sort of shot, just not worth it, don't think it would have revealed anything much else anyway :question:

Yeah it's great, looking forward to my next target :thumbsup:




Yeah I used Decon too, so it can be done without unearthing those dreaded worms...it can ;) Heck you have a mega wide field mate...camera lenses of all things :eyepop: :lol:...some nice results though :thumbsup:

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Interesting looking pair Mike. The back ground galaxies also add to the interest.

[strongmanmike]

They are indeed and I always love seeing background galaxies

Mike

[Retrograde]

Very nice pair of galaxies Mike. Wide-field must've been getting too easy for you! :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Ha ha yeah, too easy :thumbsup: Thanks a lot Pete, there are a few more galaxy pairs out there I want to shoot, looking forward to hitting a couple more :)

Mike

[willik]

The detail is amazing looks great Mike
Martin:thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Cool pair. Some very nice details in the structures. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Martin and Marc, two galaxies ya don't see too often and there's heaps more pairs like this out there too :thumbsup:

Mike

[topheart]

Great capture Mike!
Cheers,
Tim

[willik]

Nice image but it would look better if the image was more larger on iceinspace It just looks a bit small and the other image at full resolution
does look slightly out of focus slightly fussy.
Martin:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Definitely not out of focus Martin, just small galaxies up close :). I suggest you shrink the large image in your browser and view. I only post a small file on IIS just so my thread gets a thumbnail in the thread list, you certainly have to visit the links in my post to check it out properly :thumbsup:

Mike.