Centaurus A - Deep Wide Field (and the jet)

[strongmanmike]

This deep wide field 52.5hr exposure (my longest ever!), collected over 10 nights, is centered on the region around the enigmatic galaxy Centaurus A.

Perhaps all seen for the first time, in the one image and in full colour, this 4deg X 4deg vista showcases several rarely viewed characteristics of this famous galaxy and the surrounding field, they include:

1) The full extent of and the bipolar nature, of the huge galactic halo around Centaurus A, which covers a whopping 1.25deg of sky!

2) The extent of Halpha emission in the dark dust lane that runs across the centre of the galaxy.

3) The (red) relativistic jet, emanating from the super massive black hole at the core of Centaurus A, that is spewing material 100,000 light years into the outer reaches of the huge galaxy halo.

4) The extremely faint spread of galactic Cirrus dust hovering above the plain of The Milky Way, both reflecting the (mostly blue) light of the millions of stars in our galaxy as a whole, as well as emitting very faint red Halpha light of its own (from the traces of Hydrogen mixed in with the dust), making the dust a weak blue-red colour.

The enormous dynamic range in this image was indeed a challenge to handle, from the ultra faint and tenuous galactic Cirrus (around 27-28mag/squ arc sec in places) to the super bright core of Centaurus A. I have tried to keep the variations as proportional as possible, to keep the scene real and as natural as possible. I also went easy on the contrast so as not to lose any of the faint dust in the seemingly dark/black areas, that are not, the stuff is everywhere!

Not only did it take 10 nights to gather all the data for this image, with me faithfully guarding my rig and turning my dome the whole time...it also took: about 12hrs of travel time (back and forth to and from the observatory), about a case and a half of beer (drunk both at the observatory and in front of the computer during processing), about 6 Maccas burgers, 70 nuggets, 7 lots of gravy loaded fries and 7 cokes (24hr Drive through on the way home 7 of the 10 nights) aaaand about 8-10hrs processing over three days...:lol: :D

Needless to say, as my first serious imaging project with the new AP1600GTO mount, it performed absolutely flawlessly over the 10 nights, consistently autoguiding (without PEC) with average guide errors around the 0.2 arc sec mark! :D...loved watching that guide star :evil2:...I have a fetish :question:

Centaurus A Deep Wide Field (https://www.flickr.com/photos/strongman/47993621463/in/dateposted-public/) (click on image and surf around with your cursor)

Or look HERE (https://pbase.com/image/169299841) for a large version

EDIT: Over 100,000 light year long!! Relativistic Jet (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/169363823)

Hope you find this a unique view of a popular southern target :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

A brilliant image Mike. Wow, That jet is really well shown and is longer than I thought.

A lot to see and explore in this one.

Greg.

[PRejto]

Very beautiful image, Mike, and a super-human effort at 52 hours. Wow, all those stars reminds me that it is a good thing that Olbers' paradox isn't a paradox at all!


Peter

[Atmos]

:eyepop:
:bowdown:
:jawdrop:

[Placidus]

Wonderful! :party2: All goals achieved spectacularly. :bowdown:

Seeing the jet in natural colour is special. Seeing the extreme extent of the halo is special. Showing all that and the super-faint stuff in our galaxy, and still keeping good colour is special.

[vlazg]

Spectacular Mike, so much to see. Your mounts accuracy is a thing to behold. 52 hours :eyepop:

[Andy01]

Crackerjack image there Mike - leading from the front again!
Well done :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Camelopardalis]

Beautiful Mike :thumbsup:

All that Ha makes it look like a squished jam scone, a tasty one at that. And loving all the cirrus :eyepop:

[Retrograde]

Absolutely stunning image Mike! :eyepop:

[Ryderscope]

A fascinating and informative journey around Centaurus A and the surrounding areas. Wonderful work Mike :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Wow, thanks so much everyone, so glad you like it. It was a bit of effort to get to the end result with this one but nice feedback like this makes it all worth it :love:. Sometimes the most imaged objects in our sky can have hidden details not normally revealed and it is fun to dig them out :)

Mike

[Imme]

I think you should put it through Starnet to get rid of those pesky stars ;)

[strongmanmike]

He he, yeah should :thumbsup:...actually, the sheer number of stars in the field is one of the things I love about this image, so they ain't going anywhere :D

Mike

[Stevec35]

As I've said in another forum, nice work Mike

Steve

[Bart]

Aw...c'mon Mike! Now you're just showing off! How about you leave some photons for us mere mortals!:P;):D

Far out, that is an absolute ripper! Love the red jet. :eyepop::eyepop:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers again Steve :thumbsup:



Ha! Naaah, not showing off, just sharing the child like excitement of drinking beer and eating Maccas in the early hours of the morning, with all my friends :D :lol:

Thanks Bart :)

Mike

[traveller]

What Borat said!

[Peter Ward]

Interesting how you have captured captured more h-alpha
with a 0.1 metre aperture in 52 hours and in different locations to the ESO 2.2 metre image (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery471.html)
(sorry, animated gif on the link...the .gif file was over the IIS 200k limit) metre with virtually the same exposure (50 hours)

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Bo :thumbsup:

Mike

[Peter Ward]

There was no denigration in my post Mike.

I kept it very neutral...and simply posted a link to allow others to decide for themselves.

And to be frank I don't think you did anything shifty, it's a nice picture and the h-alpha blend is more likely a rookie error... blending in noise before checking whether the signal was real or not.....

[Nikolas]

Gobsmacked is the only word I can use

[strongmanmike]

Thanks a lot Nik :thumbsup:

Mike

[Atmos]

This is where it gets complicated. The ESO 2.2m is a F/8 with what I can figure out as 15.27 micron pixels (125x125mm 67megapixel sensor). Mike has a F/5 with 9 micron pixels.

In faint nebulosity the 2.2m only collects an estimated 12.5% more light per unit area. This however doesn’t take into consideration QE, the reflectivity of the ESO mirrors or scatter (the FSQ would have about 95% transmission given high quality coating and minimal dust). Given ESO likely recoat their mirrors and there is likely several corrective lens in there as well, ESO could have a 20% transmission loss without taking QE of the sensor into account.

On non stellar objects ESO and Mike are neck a neck in depth BUT ESO 2.2M does that depth at 0.18”/pixel... which is pretty amazing!

[Peter Ward]

The camera is actually a focal reducing camera, back illuminated with a QE around 90%, and you've fatally ignored the seeing which is often as low as 0.4 arc sec for the 2.2 metre's location.......but assuming of extended objects the 2.2 metre is 10-20% better you expect to see h-alpha signal at the same locations.

You'd also expect to see the faint ESO image's galaxies (extended objects) in Mike's image...but we don't, hence I'd conclude by every measure, the ESO data is deeper.

[strongmanmike]

Ah Col, don't worry about arguing the toss, Peter just posted that roll over to denigrate, using yet another misguided and miss leading comparison, he has plenty of form in this regard. Heck even me just saying that will likely produce a contrite pompous rebuttle...it's just not worth it. :rolleyes:

Mike

[Slawomir]

A fantastic image Mike - I have never seen such wide field around the Centaurus A and with so many stars and with such pleasing colours.

A few years ago I made an attempt (https://www.astrobin.com/full/250830/0/?nc=user) at capturing the jet from Paddington in Brisbane and it wasn't an easy task for sure.

I personally really like long exposure deep images - keep them coming Mike :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

C'mon Mike.... you're acting like Trump when confronted with facts...the fact is there is also a very faint h-alpha region to the left of the main jet in the ESO data, that would should be visible in your image, if it was deeper, but is strangely missing in your image....I could load another animated gif, but that would be unproductive.

You took a nice image of Cent A....but I think the h-alpha data isn't correct/stretched too much/something screwy there. You can have a little "tanty" 'cos I pointed this out if you want.

Just calling it as I see it, without calling anyone names.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Suavi :thumbsup: yes I remember your effort, was most excellent indeed.

Mike

[Bart]

Ha! Naaah, not showing off, just sharing the child like excitement of drinking beer and eating Maccas in the early hours of the morning, with all my friends :D :lol:

Thanks Bart :)

Mike

LOL! I loved the beer and burger count! :thumbsup::rofl::rofl:

[codemonkey]

Epic effort, Mike! Well done!

[alpal]

Fantastic super wide field image Mike.
I love what you can achieve with that FSQ106.


cheers
Allan

[peter_4059]

Super image as always Mike.

[strongmanmike]

Well Bart, what we do along with and to get our images, is worth sharing I recon, these things complete the scene, so to speak :thumbsup:



Thanks Lee :)



Yeah it is an amazing scope Allan and deserves its reputation :thumbsup:



Thanks Pete :)

Mike

[RobF]

Gosh that's a lot of sky and a lot of data.
Beautiful image Mike.

[multiweb]

Nice widefield, lots of dust around. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Rob, bit of work went into this one :)



Sure is but veeeery faint :)

Mike

[topheart]

Hi Mike,
Congratulations on another landmark image!

Wow!!
Very well done!!
An awesome and sterling effort. Your manual dome rotator seems to be working well :)

Cheers,
Tim

[strongmanmike]

Thanks so much Tim, I was so happy to have revealed the extent of the jet, it is such a cool feature and hardly ever revealed :thumbsup:

manual dome rotation is a lost art :D

Mike

[SimmoW]

A world class image Mike!

Very glad you called Peter out, he is the reason I rarely post here nowadays, in fact his comments were enough to totally demotivate me away from imaging, not that I really care what anyone says, but why bother when the rewards of something else like our farm or playing with our 12 new puppies are far more rewarding and less hurtful than dealing with privileged snobs or bored trolls with no life.

As for technical debates, you can see in Ward's pixel peeping gif that yes, the pro image has far higher resolution. But seems less sensitive to ha, with more subtle detail. My question is, if you are processing noise, why is it only along the jet? Hmm, that must be because it is picking up the ha....

Keep it up! I will too, just balancing life a little more

[strongmanmike]

Thank you Simon, yes it is a shame and should be called out, I agree.

Your assessment is 100% correct but I don't need to justify anything I do to someone like that.

Please don't give up on your hobby/passion because of this sort of stuff, as unnecessary as it is, there are plenty of people who see it for what it is and don't agree with it. I for one love seeing the breadth and diversity of imaging and imaging results on IIS and while I may not post to everyone (although I do to quite a few :P), I look at virtually every image posted on IIS :thumbsup:

Mike
12 puppies huh?...fun :thumbsup:

[SimmoW]

Yep, the 12 pups have yet to open their eyes but have almost started to walk and are already yapping. So cute!

Oh dear, I better go, will return in a month or so for more fun.

[Peter Ward]

Simon...Just so we are clear on the stitch-up job going on here....

In this post I have been called a: narcissistic Fu..er, contrite, pompas, to F....off, privelidged snob & bored troll (the latter by you)

But, all I did (publically) was point out
1) Mike had taken a nice image and
2) I thought (and still think) the h-alpha data is wrong....AND pointed to the pro-research images to support why I came to that conclusion AND stated I didn't think anything shifty was going on...but wondered if Mike had made a processing error.

Your throwing my private comments out there does not phase me in the slightest....the public abuse did not come from me....maybe re-read what was said & have a long hard look in the mirror.

[beren]

:thumbsup: Congrats Mike wonderful vista captured

[gregbradley]

I wonder if you could do a processing version of that data that would show the shell structure like you did with your AP152 data and the data from Rolf.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Beren :thumbsup:



I did dig around but the data just wouldn't reveal them well and no version looked good to me when I tried enhancing them so I stuck with the more traditional glowing ball look. The main shells are just noticeable but not the inner ones that Rolf extracted :)

Mike

[multiweb]

Is it cloudy in Canberra? What is wrong with you people? :rolleyes:

[strongmanmike]

Nup, perfectly clear out at Wallaroo :thumbsup: hammering away out here...

Mike

[multiweb]

I was thinking more towards the airport.

[strongmanmike]

Ah Lewis...God love him :lol:

[DavidU]

:prey2: Spifftacular Mike !

[strongmanmike]

Spank you David :P

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Welcome to the long imaging club Mike. :thumbsup: Lots to like in this image. Me personally I really like the IFN (it's all over the place), the back ground galaxies, the preponderance of stars, even the extended shape of the halo of Centaurus A. You can see the shells but faintly too. Colour of the stars and the background is near perfect in my opinion. Though I am not sure about the saturation of the Ha. It looks a little too much to me,

Overall a great image. I don't think there is any doubt that you captured the Ha jet well, least not in my opinion. Maybe your signal is a bit more blurred and that is what is looks like there might be more? :question:

It's got me thinking about a future project myself with the AG12. Like I said there is lots to like in this image.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Paul, glad you enjoyed the view, it is an unusual perspective on this often imaged galaxy and no other image, that I can find, shows all the aspects revealed here.

Regarding the Ha jet, you are absolutely spot on with your assessment, it is pretty obvious :rolleyes:, the (spiteful) roll over only served to reinforce this :thumbsup: :)

Yes, I can imagine what you might be planning, there are some options there :)

Mike

[gregbradley]

The Ha jet for me is the most spectacular aspect of this image. its pretty amazing really and I think its also a commentary on just how superb FSQ106 EDX optics are and how good the Proline is.

Also I recall Rick doing a Cent A not that long ago with an FSQ85 that showed the Ha jet very well also. It'd be worth a look at his rendition again.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Greg, was happy to pick it up so well, its pretty long! Given it's apparent length in my image is around 0.5 deg, at the 13 Million light year distance to Cen A, that's over 100,000 light years long, or about the whole distance across the Milky Way! :eyepop: :)



Couldn't find it at his Astrobin pages, his CDK17 shot is there showing the jet but nothing with an FSQ85 that I could see :shrug:

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Just posted a close up of the relativistic jet (https://pbase.com/image/169363823) emanating from the super massive black hole at the centre of Centaurus A.

The faintest extremities of Ha revealed in my data are some 30 arc min from the centre of Centarus A which means material is being ejected well over 100,000 light years out into Cen A's outer galactic halo, or the equivalent of the width of the entire Milky Way :eyepop:

Just amazing!...and no roll overs please, this ain't bloody noise!

Mike

[John Hothersall]

Those closeups look amazing, I could not see anything at first then it appeared quite clearly. Quite an achievement, 52 hours is pretty dedicated for one image but reducing that noise is essential for such faint extending detail. For an amateur rig the result is phenomemal.

John.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks a lot John :thumbsup:.. something new to many and different at least :)

Mike