NGC 1316 and friends

[codemonkey]

This is my "first light" with my new ASI183MM Pro and my first time trying to capture this target. I'd actually forgotten about it, though I'd seen it numerous times (Mike did one of the best ones I've seen back in 2012 for example).

Seeing has been poor and I don't seem to be getting as much light as I calculated that I should (a mere 0.125e/pixel/s in the background for L) so I'm not sure what's going on there, maybe my mirror coatings are buggered... all in all, this one was a challenge.

I'm usually not at all good at bringing out the faint stuff but I think I did pretty well in that regard this time.

I had planned on getting more data on this one, but got carried away with a preliminary process and now I've decided it's done. All up I got just over 21hrs. Maybe I'll get some more data another year.

More capture details here (https://www.astrobin.com/ae9alm/)
Large version here (https://www.astrobin.com/full/ae9alm)
Full version here (https://www.astrobin.com/full/ae9alm/?real)

[strongmanmike]

He he he....:D:D

Niiice work Bruce :thumbsup: :prey2: :love2:

[codemonkey]

:question: Thanks Dave! :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes weak joke, bet you have never been called Bruce Lee before...:rolleyes: :D

Seriously, another lovely galaxy shot Lee :thumbsup:. I was looking at it on my phone but since checking it out on my monitor it still looks great and the shells are well revealed but perhaps the overall view looks just a little dark? Could you stretch/brighten it a little without compromising the shell structures? Also, just curious, do you do anything to rounden up your stars?

Top job Bruce :D

[Bart]

Nice shot Lee! Something I cannot remember seeing before either. That is a very cool field. :thumbsup:



My uncle used to say 'Don't mind if I call you Fred, hey Claude, right Joe?" :lol:



Still don't know what it means! :shrug:

[codemonkey]

haha. Oh wow, I'm slow today.



Thanks mate. Yeah, I agree that it's a bit dark. I think the luminance data will hold up to that, but I've got some medium-large scale issues with the chrominance that become a bit too apparent at that point... which I think is largely due to having noisy colour data that I applied NR to.



Nah, I just relied on the ****ty seeing to round thing up for me this time. I was actually super happy with star shapes, I was pretty worried that getting a bigger sensor would bring back all the ****ty stars I was getting around the edge of the frame, but they looked pretty damned good to me, which was a relief. The bottom right is a bit diamond shape, but again, the ****ty seeing rounded those up a bit for me.



lol I haven't heard that one before. Thanks mate!

[strongmanmike]

Ok fair enough :thumbsup:

Mike (not Dave)

[Placidus]

Awesome!

We were in love with the image just looking at the background galaxies. The three main galaxies are superb.

We've put them on the list. Let none of them be missed!

[Atmos]

Cracker of a shot Lee! The poor seeing doesn’t show up at all and the 21 hours of data really shines through. It’s smooth enough that you could brighten it up a bit without revealing too much noise.

[codemonkey]

Thanks Mike. I'm excited to see what you guys can do on this one with the CDK!



Thanks muchly, Colin :-) You and Mike have convinced me to have another crack at it. Stay tuned.

[multiweb]

:eyepop: That's a corker! Beaute shot. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[codemonkey]

Thanks Marc :D

I had another brief play with the data to try and brighten it up, but I wasn't happy with it (not happy with the original either) so I think it requires some more careful processing. Not sure when I'll get to it now... busy time of year and I'm onto the next target already :p

[Paul Haese]

Nice detail here Lee. I think the colour is a tad muted but still visible. Having done this object before myself and currently doing it again with the AG12 I know that is requires a lot of data to get it looking very clean. Well done.

[marco]

Excellent resolution here, it is nice to see all these tidal waves giving the galaxy its amazing look :thumbsup:
Cheers
Marco

[codemonkey]

Thanks Paul. I look forward to seeing your version :-) I'm still thinking to have another shot at processing this one, but I did have some difficulties with the colour data. I think overall it is muted and could be improved, but the colour data has been the limiting factor there... perhaps I can do better with it though.



Thanks very much, Marco :-)

[codemonkey]

Ok, I finally had another crack at this. It's much brighter with more saturation... I think it looks a lot better than the original at "fit to window" size on Astrobin, but at full res you can see it's pushed pretty hard. Had to use a fair bit of NR on it too.

[marc4darkskies]

Wow - what a difference! The reprocess is a stunner Lee! Beautiful!

[MLParkinson]

Hot dogs is that a damn good image. I can't believe you used a tiny 8 inch telescope. Surely it was taken using the 4 meter AAT telescope?

[codemonkey]

Thanks Marc! I'm still not happy with it, but I'm sick of processing it so it'll have to do for now :lol:



Thanks Murray, you're too kind! One of these days I'll get something a bit bigger but the 8" does alright ;-)