NGC 4517 in Virgo

[Ryderscope]

NGC 4517 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Virgo and shares a rich field of galaxies just waiting to be hunted down for the interested observer. I personally like the pairing of this edge on spiral with the face on spiral, NGC 4517A (a.k.a. Reinmuth 80) across to the right at the 3 to 4 o'clock position. I actually think that NGC 4517A look a little like a smaller version of NGC 6744.

The main galaxy - NGC 4517 - displays a quite noticeable dust lane down the centre and blue areas which are most likely groupings of young hot stars. NGC 4517 is about 40 million light years from Earth.

To save everyone the trouble of trying to count all of the background galaxies in the image (because I know you will :D), I used the plate solve function in Pixinsight to annotate the image to identify all of the galaxies it could find. See attached image. The field is certainly crazy with galaxies to be sure.

Link to image on Astrobin here. (https://astrob.in/ev2lct/0/)

Here is a link to the image on Flickr (https://flic.kr/p/2jrURB9) as well as it is good for panning around the image.

Acquisition and technical details can be found in the Astrobin post.

Clear skies,
Rodney

[Placidus]

Another exquisite image Rodney. Beautiful, restrained processing.


The Astrobin image indeed is awash with countless background galaxies.



(I could only count a total of two or three beyond the main pair in the Flickr version)


Best,
Mike

[gregbradley]

That's a wonderful image Rodney. Great colour and pinpoint stars. I don't recall seeing this one imaged before.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies]

A great image Rodney! :thumbsup:

[Ryderscope]

MnT, Greg, Marcus - thanks for the comments and feedback. Appreciate the thoughts on the processing. We always venture to try and hit that ‘sweet spot‘.

[Bart]

Lovely stuff, nicely processed. The astro bin link always has an overlay? Can it be seen with out it?

[Andy01]

Well seen & beautifully processed, good one! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Excellent wide(ish) field galaxy shot Rod :thumbsup:

Mike

[Ryderscope]

Thanks team for the comments. I have been finding the plate solve image a bit distracting as well so I have turned it off for now. I can easily turn it back on in the Astrobin settings. It does make it easier for scanning around the image.

Clear skies,
Rodney

[Bart]

Thanks Rodney, I'll have another scan of it when I get home. Astrobin is blocked on my work computer, has an unsafe certificate or something. :question:

[alpal]

Superb image Rodney.
That's 19.5 hours well spent and no luminance all RGB.
Yes - there are large numbers of galaxies showing as it's a deep picture.


cheers
Allan

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Allan, for the luminance I created a synthetic luminance by averaging the R, G and B masters after applying some noise reduction in Pixinsight. I then treated the synthetic luminance the same as I would a 'real' luminance acquired from captured data.

[rustigsmed]

damn some of those background galaxies are ultra sharp! nice work Rodney.

[Ryderscope]

That's very kind Russell.

Many thanks,
Rodney

[multiweb]

Sharp alright. :eyepop: Beautiful field. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[LewisM]

Loving that!


Typical Tak finesse... :P

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Lewis and Marc. It is nice have a good scope to work with.