NGC 6744 and Galactic Cirrus dust

[strongmanmike]

Well took a few days but I finally got around to (round 1) of my processing of the data I collected at Wiruna last weekend.

First image is a nice widish field around the beautifull spiral NGC 6744 in Pavo.

I wanted to go much deeper over the two days but I lost a number of subs (and precious time investigating:scared:) due to mechanically routed guide issues (later rectified), and friggin satellites! - they were doing it on purpose I am sure :mad2: Plus the seeing was atrocious most of the time and poor the rest pluuuuus it was very windy with strong scary gusts, so the faint stuff has basically been smeared... :doh:

Never the less... I was very happy to reveal that lovely Galactic Cirrus dust again and while not as extensive, due to much less exposure time and the above conditions, like in my deep Cen A image it is all over the field, like smoke :eyepop:

Perhaps a bit blue for some of you (I seem to lean toward a blue feel) and as I do, I went easy on the noise reduction again :P.

anyway here it is:

Full Frame 70% size (5meg)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/103969309/original

Crop of main galaxy (2.3meg)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/103969154/original

Enahanced Luminance to show extent of Galactic Cirrus dust (1meg):
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/103969838/original

aaaand for those who wish to, here is the whole shabbang 13.5meg full frame full res image, to swim around in counting all the background galaxies :D:
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/103970854/original

Cheers

Mike

[multiweb]

That's a great picture Mike. The high-res is amazing. And you said you had problems with the wind? :whistle: There's no hints of even a slight breeze in your frame :)

[h0ughy]

help me I am drowning in your dust.... so i see you have more data Mike - fantastic!

[strongmanmike]

Hi Marc

Yeh the long thin shape of the Starfire coupled with the sturdiness of the NJP and my pedestal pier make it reasonably viable to continue even through the sort of rediculous conditions we had over the weekend. The image is softer than it would have been of course :sadeyes:...oh well, beggers can't be chosers, t'was that or pack it in and have nothing to show for the weekend...besides, I'm not sure I or anyone else could stand another repro of Centaurus A :scared:

Glad you liked the image :)

Mike

[Matty P]

Wow!!! Absolutely amazing!

Like always a very impressive image Mike. The Hi-Res version is quite something. There is so much to see. :)

There is no hint of terrible conditions in this image.

Very well done. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Thanks so much Matt glad you liked it so much, comments like that make the shock of watching, my telescope being buffeted by Sydney to Hobart force winds and my focus stars jumping all over the place swelling in and out, from a dot to a fuzz ball in seconds, all worth carrying on for, cheers :thumbsup:

Mike

[Dennis]

Hi Mike

What a stunning portrait of this beautiful galaxy. The wide field setting is absolutely gorgeous. Everything looks spot on – you’ve done a terrific job despite the conditions and problems you’ve alluded to.

Thanks for the pre-breakfast intergalactic romp!

Cheers

Dennis

[Phil]

Stunning shot well done.
Phil

[h0ughy]

after the 5th look at this it is amazing how many faint fuzzies are in the background

[Alchemy]

what can i say, it looks good, but i will wait for the repro...s to see if its your best:lol:

good to see you have had the opportunity to get out and do some more.

now that you are in a bright location homewise, are you considering doing some narrowband work?

[marc4darkskies]

Very nice Mike - top shot as always! :thumbsup: Nice to scan around for the fuzzies.

Buuut, for my taste at least, it's an teensy bit blue and the colour noise up close is a weensy bit too much as well. It's hard to judge on my crappy work LCD monitor though (only 6 bit I think) - it acts like an astro image defect exaggerator :lol:.

How long were your subs? I'll bet you had to do some serious stretching to reveal the cirrus?

Cheers,
Marcus

[Garyh]

Beautiful Mike! Love the closeup!
cheers Gary

[sjastro]

Nice image Mike.

NGC 6744 is one of the most difficult objects to image.

Regards

Steven

[Tamtarn]

Superb Mike. Such a beautiful field in the full res. Considering you had less than perfect conditions it's an amazing result.

[strongmanmike]

Glad it was such a cullinary entre big D, nothing like a pan galactic cirrus blaster for breaky :thumbsup:



Cheers Phil



I love what a largish field at good image scale can do under true dark skies, shame about the poor seeing and wind though as there would have been even more to look for :sadeyes:



Oh I am sure this will be the case, I am not happy with it already :doh:



Ahhhhh... image, my Kingdom to image

You got it Clive! Some narrowband filters are on the way soon ;) but strangely I probably wont use'em where I am since my sky access is very limited regardless of the light pollution :(



I agree Markus this FOV under dark skies and viewed at full res is pretty cool



Ah yes I know...it's probably hard to make sense of in this age of super smooth imaging but as I have said before I think my previous experience with grainy film has desensitised me to fine scale image noise...:shrug: :screwy:?



I almost always use 10min subs, which at F7.5 and under dark skies seems to be ok and is a nice comprimise between risking dissapointment through subs being ruined by tracking error, satellite trails, wind gusts, equipment slipping etc etc and getting more signal each sub..when you are 100% portable and mizerly about your time it is really important to be mindful of these things I guess..?

Yes I did some stretching and with rather limited and softer data this time compared to Cen A, it was deffinitelly harder to extract the faint stuff and fine details without blowing out the noise too much..I tried but like you say... it "is" only my first attempt afterall huh? ;)



Thanks Gary, I wonder what other versions I will come up with..? :whistle:



Thanks very much Steve!

I agree 100%, NGC 6744 is indeed hard to nail. It does help to have good data though, 2 and a bit hrs Lum is not really enough here (had a bit more but many subs were lost to the prevailing conditions, a couple of rare equipment problems and satellites), my deep Cen A image with 20hrs of data was much easier to work with.



Thanks Barb?..Dave? ok, both of ya, I was very surprised to get this much too, I can only imagine what good still steady skies would have revealed :sadeyes: I think the dark skies helped atleast though.

Mike

[winensky]

Many wonderful comments all richly deserved for such a fine image.

[jase]

Excellent Mike, simply excellent. The spiral arms show impressive definition on this tough target. Star colours look pretty good too. M and K spec type could perhaps been a little move developed but this is minor. Did you also factor atmosp. extinction on this one? Well done.:2thumbs:

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Jase, I know there would have been a couple of other niggly things you would have noticed but perhaps in my inevitable repro I will address these? Aren't M class stars red? There are plenty of redish stars in there..? I purposely stayed with the slight blue cast in the image as it made the stars and galaxy shine a little more and the Cirrus stands out a little better..?..I also used no noise reduction again, pushing the data to the limit I guess, maybe I'll try it differently in the repro?...Ooooh I'm getting excited about the repro already...:screwy: :lol:

BTW wandering around during the wee hours while my rig imaged away through the wind made me think of you a few times mate, I thought to myself hmmm? Jase has a point regarding remote imaging....:sadeyes: But the whole travelling to a dark sky, setting up, camping etc, and I took my teenage son with me too who had great fun catching Yabbies in the Wiruna dam, all makes for a great time I guess? Bit like a fishing trip :)

Mike

[Jeffkop]

Another outstanding image Mike ... wish I knew more about all this to provide some useful comment. How do you know so much of the detail about all the images you take ... the detail is nearly as rewarding as the image ... Fantastic

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Matt I'm glad everyone enjoyed it, standing out in the wind, in poor seeing with satellites wizzing through so many sub frames and a temporarily slipping focus assemply sure put doubt in my mind, my perfect experience over 3 days at Wiruna for my Deep cen A shot was probably a fluke.? :doh:



Thanks Jeff

What details are you refering to?

Mike

[tornado33]

Yep another lovely image there. Everything looks like its done just right, colourbalance, and contrast/brightness with nothing artificial about it. Well done
Scott

[Hagar]

Very Nice image Mike but you need to use less talcum powder.
Nice to see something different from CentA.
Keep them coming.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Scotty, glad you are on my processing wavelength...I think we may be slightly in the minority :lol:



There is talcum powder all over the higher galactic areas, brighter in some areas than others of course. NGC 253 has no galactic cirrus around it for example where as Cen A and NGC 6744 have a thin faint layer but it gets much thicker closer to the SCP/NCP regions though:

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/55274684/original

&

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/61217424/original

Mike

[gregbradley]

Sweet image of the queen of galaxies!

I did not realise it is starting to rise again.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Starting to rise..??? where you been man?..it's West of the meridian on dark mate! :lol:

Going at 100 miles an hour Greg huh? :screwy: :rofl:

Mike

[gregbradley]

So it is.

I must've had the time set wrong on this copy of the Sky as I just checked it before I posted last and it seemed to be rising. I did it again and it is as you say past the peak on the downhill slide. Still time to image it though for a bit longer.

Greg.

[Octane]

Mike,

Wow! Gorgeous, just gorgeous.

It looks so lonely floating there all by its lonesome.

Regards,
Humayun

[RB]

Yep absolutely breathtaking Mike, I tend to like the blue feel too.

:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

It does look a bit lonely I guess, I was hoping to get much more exposure but I lost a lot of subs due to an issue I had with guiding which I later rectified plus friggin satellites, they were in a lot of subs (including one bright one right through the galaxy) plus the wind plus just not enough DAM TIME! :scared: I was imagining a shot similar to my deep Cen A so it would have been a bit more interesting but in the end..?..err? all of the above? :(

Gee I complain a lot huh? :P



Yes I find myself leaning toward a slight blue cast most of the time these days, must be that my eyes like that look :shrug:....:screwy:?

Mike

[gregbradley]

Its funny but I also tend to lean towards liking a blue feel to images. If it has a green cast it looks bad, a red cast isn't as bad but not appealling but blue is easier to have.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Yeh... it's probably just a crazy, idiosyncratic fetish of ours? :P