NGC 253 Hydrogen alpha - barely there

[Placidus]

NGC 253 in hydrogen alpha. 150 minutes in 15 min 2x2 binned subs.

Good seeing, but run terminated by rising moon, thick smoke from Wollemi bush fires, and some technical issues with the guide camera.

After a year in the making, this is our first really good crack at an image with a totally rebuilt observatory. Same old 20" PlaneWave CDK, but new FLI PL16803 camera (superb), new filter wheel, ZWO 1600MM guider (brilliant, but some teething problems at our end), five Arduino Due's doing the robotics, and totally new control software, all written in-house.

What we see:

Unlike say NGC 55 or NGC 300, there doesn't seem to be so very much H-alpha here. The raw subs looked totally black. What there is shows a very strong spiral structure.

We'd love to hear from anyone else who's had a crack at NGC 253 in H-alpha.

Best,

Mike and Trish

[Atmos]

Great to see you up and running again MnT! The 20” always delivery’s :thumbsup:
Don’t often hear of Ha on NGC 253 but it does a good job in showing the underlying spiral structure without all of the dust and stars.

[Joshua Bunn]

That is awesome Mike and Trish, love it how it's showing the region of interest so we'll, like you say, a strong spiral structure!


Josh

[strongmanmike]

Welcome back guys :hi: Sounds like a revamped Euchareena imaging system, hope it all holds together for you this time :thumbsup:

I know it is classified as an intermediate spiral but looking at images I have always thought that NGC 253 could be NGC 1365 but seen at a steep angle and showing just the HII regions seems to reinforce this impression..? :)

THIS (https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/411/1/71/1036711) might interest you?

Mike

[gregbradley]

Nice Ha M and T. Boy you don't muck around do you? Rebuilt everything and new software. Wow, what a task.

Fantastic round stars. Good structure. I have done H on 253 before but not that thoroughly.

Greg.

[Geoff45]

Nice clean image M&T. I'm surprised at the amount of detail you've gathered with a relatively short exposure.

[alpal]

Hi Mike & Trish,
barely there?
I don't think so - looks like a very good picture in Ha.


cheers
Allan

[Andy01]

+1^ what Mike said - was thinking that too as soon as I saw your marvellous image. :thumbsup::D

Fascinating to reveal the Ha in these galaxies, I recall you once did the same thing with NGC 300? Certainly shows them off in a new light (boom-tisch!) :lol:

Well done getting back on the horse - we've all missed your input here :hi:

[Bart]

Love the strong spiral structure that the Ha brings out. I was quite taken with how much more it stands out like that. I wonder how that will look when blended in with LRGB?

[Placidus]

Colin, Josh, Greg, Mike, Geoff, Allan, Andy, Bart,

Thanks very much for the encouragement. We're doing some unbinned RGB tonight. So far, everything is working.

Mike, we had a look at the article you mentioned. I think I understood "The" and not much more after that.

Best,
M

[multiweb]

Looks great Mike. Good to see you under the stars again. :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

To quote Spock: "Fascinating!"

Good to hear you are harvesting such rare photons again :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Incredibly different from NGC55 and yet equally interesting. The structure of the spiral is well seen and shows how the gas behaves in such an environment. Good to also see you back posting images. It sounds like it has been a tough trip.

[John K]

Mike n Trish,

Great to see you imaging again - look forward to seeing the final image with this data.

Excellent detail and resolution!

Clear skies.

John K.

[topheart]

Great to see you are back on deck again!
All the best with the new setup!
Cheers,
Tim

[codemonkey]

Lookin' good guys! Great to see you back at it again.

[Placidus]

Marc, Peter, Paul, John,

That sounds biblical. Thanks very much for the encouragement ...

Tim, Lee,

... and the support.

We've since taken more colour and luminance, and everything continues to work, which is very heartening. Seeing has been excellent bordering on heartbreaking, but smoke from the bushfires has made the transparency appalling, so we won't bore you with the sharp but gritty results.