FINALLY!...NGC 1232 in Eridanus

[strongmanmike]

YAfter acquiring our 100acre property (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/171437441/auto) high up in the Tinderry Mountains 56km south of Canberra, back in late May 2021, then turning the first sod (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/172182516/original) for the future Eagleview Observatory on 7 Dec 2021 and then the long and complex logistical project to complete Eagleview Observatory (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/building_eagleview_observatory) and then when finally completed, being frustrated by all the extra cloud cover caused by the La Nina effect here in eastern Australia, shock horror, I was eeeeventually lucky enough to be able to get enough clear sky time over the current New Moon, to cobble together the very first colour image to come out of Eagleview Observatory! phew!..and Woohoo! :cool:

While the cloud cover has been considerably greater in recent times, due to La bloody Nina, when it actually is clear, the other important atmospheric qualities have proven to be excellent at Eagleview, with both sky transparency and seeing conditions revealed to be of an excellent standard on the mountain. These conditions have been noted on every observing and imaging session over the last 18 months or so too. So, coupled with the excellent Bortle 1/2 dark sky conditions enjoyed at the location and despite the increased La Nina cloud it is proving to be an excellent spot to do astronomy and is a significant improvement in conditions compared to my previous observatory location (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/wallaroo_observatory) at Wallaroo, much closer to Canberra. :thumbsup:

This first full colour image is composed of only a pretty modest 6.2hrs worth of total exposure, which is not the sort of exposure length I would normally be satisfied with, especially considering it is data from five filters!...but hey, I was very keen to acquire my first full colour image within 12 months after starting the observatory and because I had shot this target with all the same imaging gear, from my previous observatory site, I kept the exposure almost exactly the same, so I could compare results more critically...so...voila, I did it and with a few days to spare! so, here it is! :)

NGC 1232 view in:

Pbase Galleries (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/173190465/original) and on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/strongman/52526422625/in/dateposted/) (click on image to enlarge)

Comparison Tinderry vs Wallaroo site (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/173190596/original) and an animated Gif (https://pbase.com/image/173190714/original) (also attached)

Raw sub frame comparison (https://pbase.com/image/173194871/original)

Comparison Eagleview vs La Silla in Chile (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/173190480/original)

Happy days! :)

EDIT: Courtesy of Allan (alpal) and using MaximDL processing software to analyse the FWHM of multiple stars across the raw Luminance frames used in this image, confirms an average FWHM of 1.7" with some figures as low as 1.512" which is excellent and I have seen similarly sharp sub frames on all four imaging session done at Eagleview so far...fingers crossed this proves common place up there! :thumbsup:

Mike
Now, we just need to go back into drought, with much less clouds :shrug: :prey:....:question:

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
that's looking great.
It must be so good to be finally getting some images from your new observatory.
I hope it's exceeding your expectations?
What was the FWHM for those sub frames?
Also -
what Ha filter were you using - this one?
https://www.astronomik.com/en/photographic-filters/h-alpha-12nm-ccd-filter.html

It would be nice to see an Ha only stack.



cheers
Allan

[Ryderscope]

Fantastic result Mike and a worthwhile outcome at the end of a busy project. Whilst it may have seemed like a long road, to go from getting the keys to producing this image in only 18 months is seriously good :thumbsup:

[Startrek]

Mike,
Lovely image of a target that some folk probably only dream about capturing
Well done indeed !!
Congratulations, your long journey to the top of that mountain is now finally complete
Happy nights ahead
Looking forward to seeing more amazing images from above the clouds
Cheers
Martin

[Retrograde]

Congratulations Mike!
A fine image to mark your observatory's completion. :clap:

[Dave882]

Congrats Mike and what an incredible image!! Those sky’s look to be absolutely incredible and with the obs up and running I’m excited to see your future projects. The comparison to wallaroo sky conditions is quite stark. Us mere mortals can only dream…;)

[LonelySpoon]

Well, that's torn it, Mike!

I was just about to put up my first light image and you put this up.

Now, I'll have to go back and take a much better first light....


Lovely image and congratulations.

Love the comparison to Chile, too.

Neville
LSO

[gregbradley]

Congrats Mike on your superb image and first light. We've all been following your exciting project and lived along with its progress and it's all paying off for you.

That is a hard object to image in the first place. I have tried this one and a 10 minute sub is typically very faint.

It's one of the nicest southern spirals being such a perfect and symmetrical spiral.

Greg.

[PRejto]

Bravo! I look forward to many encores!

Peter

[xelasnave]

Excellent..I am very happy for you...your belief in your dream made it happen.
Alex

[AnakChan]

What a brilliant story Mike. Huge congrats on the success of Eagleview Observatory.

[Crater101]

I'll add my own note of congratulations. After following the considerable effort that's gone in to the construction, seeing the first efforts come to light is a fine thing. Well done young man!


I can only imagine what you'll produce as the skies clear and the seeing improves. (I can only hope that the skies clear in my neck of the woods as well.)


Bravo!

[strongmanmike]

Thanks so much everyone for your replies and the well wishes, it's been a fun journey and yes, I have felt the love from many of you, who have been following the progress, it's been great to share it with all of you :love: :thumbsup: and Alex, that's a good way of putting it, you are right, I had to maintain the belief, through what at times was some real trepidation and nerves :)

and Greg, along with MBJ's Placidus Observatory at Euchareena, your wonderful Bigga Observatory has been aspirational and inspirational for me, for a number of years now :)

Once I have the capabilities of the new observatory up to where they could be and we (ever) eventually start enjoying the next El Nino :rolleyes: :prey:, it will be gang busters :D

For those interested, I've added a map to show the relative locations and height of my last observatory in relation to Eagleview and Canberra.

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Congrats on your first light image Mike! :thumbsup: Long time coming!

Like Allan, I'd be really curious to hear what your raw FWHMs are between the two versions. I tried between Grose Vale and here, but didn't see a huge difference - seeing was too variable in both locations and I haven't been doing much imaging here at all.

[TrevorW]

Impressive for a first light only up hill from here :)

[mura_gadi]

Nice one Mike, bet you were soar with the eagles after your "first light" results.

Looking forward to many more.

[AstroViking]

Echoing everyone else's words, Mike. Congrats on an excellent first image!

[rustigsmed]

Congrats Mike - happy for you - the realisation of the dream turned reality - looking forward to seeing many more 👍

[strongmanmike]

Thanks again guys for the nice comments, can't wait to get back out under the Eagleview skies :)




Hi Allan, see below re FWHM and I use the 6nm Astronomiks in the Starlightxpress camera.



Thanks Marcus.

I use Astroart to do my, camera control, image acquisition, calibration, stacking and main processing and it doesn't have a FWHM measuring option. So, to better illustrate the difference in seeing between the two sites, I went through all my raw 10min sub frames from both sessions on this galaxy and picked the very best raw uncalibrated single 10 min sub frame taken from each location. Interestingly, all seventeen of the 10min sub frames taken from Eagleview, over two nights, were of almost identical quality to the one in the comparison and it was hard to pick the best one out visually, where as the quality varied quite obviously between the sub frames taken over the two nights from Wallaroo.

Atmospheric stability and darkness, Wallaroo vs Eagleview (https://pbase.com/image/173194871/original)

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Yeah, that looks pretty convincing, as does the darker sky.:thumbsup: I know nothing about astroart, but a quick browse of astroart 8 seems to show a tool displaying FWHM :question:. I'd encourage anyone wanting to quantify their seeing conditions to quote FWHM. These days I quote average FWHM in arcsecs for each image I post.

[alpal]

Thanks Mike,
my calculations reveal that 6nm is OK where as a 3nm filter would
have been too narrow to pick up Ha given the recession velocity at 61 Mly away.
Redshift 0.005347
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1232

As for FWHM my Maxim DL can measure it straight off
the FITS files 10 years later or whatever.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Using 6nm filters, when deciding if I will bother capturing Ha for a galaxy, I generally use 80 million light years as a practical limit. I don't have Maxim DL.

Mike

[alpal]

Thanks Mike,
sorry if I was a pain but I was always hoping you would obtain at some stage
FWHM values of less than 1 arc second at your new observatory
to make it the best seeing in Australia.
In Melbourne I'm lucky if I get 3 arc seconds -
many nights were 6 arc seconds.



cheers
Allan

[PaulSthcoast]

O.K......


I'm sure I am not alone in wondering.....


So, for the likes of myself and others;


What is FWHM ?


Paul.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks to your inquiry Marcus :thumbsup: Courtesy of Allan (alpal) and using MaximDL processing software to analyse the FWHM of multiple stars across the raw Fits Luminance frames, used in this image, confirms an average FWHM of 1.7" with some figures as low as 1.644" which is pretty good and I have seen similarly sharp sub frames on all four imaging sessions done at Eagleview so far...so, fingers crossed, this proves common place up there! :prey: :thumbsup:

Mike

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
you have done well - a magnificent result for your first light picture.

I don't think anyone else here is getting such good FWHM figures?
Your frame that I checked was a Luminance frame.
I always found that the L frames were always slightly worse than any RGB frames
and that Ha frames gave the best FWHM.
e.g.
if an L frame was 3.3 arc seconds an Ha frame might be 3.0 arc seconds.
therefore your values could be a bit better with RGB or Ha frames -
maybe as low as 1.5 arc seconds?


cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Thanks so much for your help Allan, yes, pretty cool indeed...not to mention that this may not be as good as it gets...who knows, be great to crack 1" one night :)

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Further to this and out of curiosity, Allan kindly checked out my first light image (https://pbase.com/image/173026960/original) and the raw Fits subs returned a FWHM of 2.1" which is not quite as good as the NGC 1232 subs but still pretty all right! I didn't keep any subs from my night of imaging in between but the stars looked pretty good then too, so that's four nights, at least, of pretty good to excellent seeing so far, since start of Oct...so with a bit of luck, this might prove to be a regular expectation :prey: :)

Mike

[strongmanmike]

Hi there Paul

The Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) is a measure of the quality of an astronomical image based on how much the telescope and atmosphere have smeared a point source (stars) in an image, over several pixels in the CCD. Simply put, it describes how much a point of light spreads out due to the bluring effects of our atmosphere. At the very best sites in the World, this spread is under 1 arc sec, in Australia anything under 2" is generally considered the Holy Grail :)

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Definitely an improvement on both darkness and seeing there Mike. I suspect you will get better seeing when you get southerlies or perhaps a high pressure sits over your position. We have seen quite good seeing at SR when those sort of conditions prevail (which is quite often) and have FWHM results around 1.4-1.7 and sometimes just a bit better. I think with your elevation you should get 1.2" in those sort of conditions with spikes at around 0.7".

I generally don't agree with the comments that Australia is mainly around 2-3". I think that might be applicable to the east coast due to the ranges being in the way of the prevailing air stream. I know there are locations in SA which get sub arcsecond seeing regularly, the upper north of the state for example (which was considered for the AAT installation due to its exceptional seeing). During the drought most places in SA had exceptional seeing and I know that seeing generally was not improved on the east coast. At SR we do get 1.4-1.8" (read via MaximDL whilst imaging) regularly and my images are distinctly sharper as a result of the location over recent years at Clayton Bay. Clayton was great during the drought where we measured with a DIMM readings as low as 0.7" for hours at a time. Sadly that diminished with the break in the drought. Seeing was generally 1.8-2.0" with only some nights around 1.4". Still quite good but not fantastic for sea level imaging.

I am looking forward to your further results to see how much more improved the imaging will be for you going forward.

[AdamJL]

Time to buy a lotto ticket.. I'd love FWHM figures like that.

Great work, Mike. So pleased to see an image finally come out of the obsy.

[strongmanmike]

Interesting assessment Paul, we'll see how it pans out over time, for now though I'm happy that Eagleview appears to be a significant improvement over my old site, clearly discernible, both on screen and visually through a scope... even without using MaximDL :) :thumbsup:...be nice to see less cloud on the east coast though :prey:



Cheers Adam, oh don't worry, we have bought many lottery tickets lately...strangely none have won too much :question:, but we got a $160 win a few weeks ago :lol:

[markas]

Mike - splendid image:thumbsup::thumbsup: and what a great way to kick off the new observatory!


The comments re seeing are kinda depressing for me here in Melbourne:sad:. Two years ago from my site near Hanging Rock, 1.8" was not unusual. My latest glimpse of the stars on a new moon night didn't manage better 3", and the transparency - or lack of it - quite evident. I've also noticed that measurements of the darkness have deteriorated from SQM around 21.5+ to 21.3 at best -and it shows on faint galaxies.....


Enough! Congrats on this great image.
Mark

[strongmanmike]

Thanks very much Mark, quite happy with the preliminary imaging results :thumbsup:

Which Hanging Rock? there are a few, I am thinking maybe the one 60km north-west of Melbourne..? From my experience, during winter and spring last year, the skies over Eagleview were utterly spectacular, returning very high SQM readings regularly in the high 21.90's maxing out at 22.05 a couple of times revealing Mag 7.0 stars, the Gegenschein and the ultra faint Zodiacal Bridge (https://www.petrhoralek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016_04_14_La_Silla_From_Gegen_to_F alse_Dawn_1600px-1.png), looking like two Milky Way's in the sky, one bright one faint perpendicular to each other, the transparency was incredible... but after the Tongan explosion in January, the sky seems to have lost it's edge :shrug: and SQM readings have struggled to get out of the 21.80's and I can actually see the quality has dropped just a fraction...still bloody good of course but there is a difference, hopefully that darkness will return :prey:

With a bit of luck, next year will see the last of the Tongan dust settle and a good dry El Nino back :prey: :D

Mike

[alpal]

Hi Paul,
we discussed it in great detail 7 years ago here:
https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=137559
I was always surprised at you excellent FWHM figures from sea level.
I think Mike will break the 1 arc second barrier one night - sooner or later -
just given that at such high altitude he's looking through less atmosphere.


cheers
Allan

[Ryderscope]

There are some aspects to this discussion on measuring seeing conditions that are worth exploring further but I don't want to bog down Mike's thread more on this issue. To this end I have kicked of a discussion in this thread (https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=1576349#post157634 9)in the Astrophotography and Imaging Equipment forum on the relationship between FWHM measurements and the image scale of one's optical system. I am very interested in the views of others on this topic.

Clear skies,
Rodney

[strongmanmike]

Good idea Rod, I'm new to this myself, this is the first time I have ever considered measuring FWHM and didn't even have MaximDL. My main wish/hope, was to simply find myself able to confirm that all the time, effort and investment, to move my observatory to it's new location, was actually going to see an improvement in conditions over my last site :prey::prey:, and not that it was somehow going to suddenly provide atacama'esque seeing :lol: I was initially just using my eye, honed over many years of looking through and imaging with, telescopes, under varying conditions and in my case actually using the same equipment at different sites, so comparisons were immediately obvious, without some new fangled FWHM palava to tell me what I could already clearly see with my own eyes :lol:...and so far the pretty clear improvement has made me quite happy and somewhat relieved, Maama Mia, thanka goda! :P

I do however now have MaximDL :D so, added to my propensity to be mesmerised by my perfect, AP1600GTO induced autoguiding star centroid graphs (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/171117102/original) :lol: (I can stare at them for hours :face:) I will now have fun obsessing over my FWHM from image to image, being elated on the good nights..aaaand positively depressed on the mushy nights.

We can be a funny bunch us astromoners :driving::nerd: :)

Mike

[Nikolas]

Wow, just wow!

[alpal]

Good - and I made a comment there.
https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=1576366#post157636 6


cheers
Allan

[Ryderscope]

Yes, and a good point in all that is that sometimes we can get lost in the numbers and at the end of the day our eyeballs will be the ultimate judge :eyepop:

[strongmanmike]

Egggggs..zackery! :) Like my processing, I usually just trust my eye in the end, not histograms :thumbsup:

Mike

[TrevorW]

Have to agree with that the quality of an image is always in the eye of the beholder. I have seen people stack ridiculous amounts of hourly data where very little improvement has been gained over what can be achieved by expert processing of half the data. To me I can see no real benefit in 50hrs of data over say 12 or less depending of the scope and target. I think there is a law of diminishing return that applies to data requirement for a superb image, likewise with good processing superb images can be gleaned from limited data. :shrug:

[Camissa]

Congratulations to your new dream observatory, Mike. Your NGC 1232 is an amazing start!

[strongmanmike]

Thanks a lot Erik :thumbsup: I've got six weeks long service coming up over Chrissy and New Year, so I hope Miss Nina is kind to us in that period :prey:

Mike

[Addos]

outstanding!

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Adam :thumbsup: hopefully only upwards from here too :prey: :2thumbs:

Mike

[AdamJL]

Upwards like building at Kosciuszko? Don't be greedy, Mike....

[Ant0nio]

Congratulations Mike, a fine result & reward for your effort :thumbsup:.

Best,
Tony

[strongmanmike]

Thanks a lot Tony :thumbsup:..now hoping that the approaching slide, away from Full Moon, will be accompanied by some nice clear skies :prey:

Mike

[g__day]

Very, very impressive Mike!

[strongmanmike]

Thanks very much Matthew :thumbsup:

Mike

[matlud]

Congrats Mike -what a fantastic start! Can't wait to see what you get up in the future. Cheers, Mat

[strongmanmike]

Thanks so much Mat :hi:.... got some nice clears skies last night, so, new things are underway...;) :D

Mike

[DJT]

Congrats Mike.
Hell of a way to get a run on the board. The gif is quite telling

Expecting a huge amount of awesome images from you next year

D

[Stephane]

Oh wow, this is fantastic. You must be so pleased Mike. All that effort with the new observatory is now paying off with a magnificent result. Looking forward to seeing what photons you capture next.

Stéphane

[strongmanmike]

Thanks so much Dave and Stephane, appreciate the kind words of encouragement :thumbsup:

So far I have another beautiful clear night up here tonight, with only a light breeze, the sky looks awesome...so fingers crossed :thumbsup::D

Mike