Ngc 1566

[Peter Ward]

Re-visiting this little gem allowed me to add a couple of hours more data.

Hints of very faint outer arm structure indicates that
many more hours of exposure would be useful in bringing out the details, but it seems the eastern seaboard is in for an extended rainy spell....

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery34.html

Is a pleasing, but hardly top shelf result due very average seeing.

[Garyh]

Well I like it Peter! Contrast and colors look beautiful! and nice detail within even with the average seeing! :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Gary.... perhaps I'm being too stringent. Given it was taken under the glowing lid of Sydney's lights it's not too shabby :)

[jase]

Peter,
Perhaps average seeing, but you've got lovely details present within the spiral structure. The faint outer wispy arms are great. I do however feel you were a little heavy handed on colour saturation. IMO, you'll probably find dropping the saturation will provide a greater sense of detail as the colours are so distracting. Give -30 ago to see what you think when you blink between the two. Thanks for sharing this target. Haven't seen it imaged much.

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Jase. Fair call. I ruminated over the saturation, but having looked at the images on four different displays, I frankly gave up as the image quality varied across all four......Looked great on my 23inch Apple Cinema display :)

[Octane]

Peter,

Lovely!

Regards,
Humayun

[Peter Ward]

Thanks! :)

[spearo]

very nice
great color!
frank

[AlexN]

Looks great on Sony 52"! Perhaps a touch oversaturated, but who am I to judge... :)

[Hagar]

Peter, For average seeing and the Sydney sky glow I would be very happy with an image of this caliber. The detail in the arms is truely amazing. The target galaxy looks to be very small but beautifully captured. The background exhibits a little artifact or noise but it looks quite realistic. I wish I could get such a flat background. Well done.

[Ric]

A lovely capture Peter.

A fine result considering the levels of light pollution you must experience.

[Peter Ward]

Many thank Alex, Hagar, Ric, Frank.

I've taken the saturation comments on-board and have dropped it back a tad.
(same link (http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery34.html))

There are probably a few comments/hints worth stating.

While many would say imaging deep sky from the burb's is a hopeless task you can make life a whole lot easier by:

Having a low noise high dynamic range camera...which really means: cooled CCD.

Make *deep* sub exposures. I use at least 10 minutes, and often up to 20 minutes per sub. IMHO you are doomed to a life of imaging misery by sticking to 30 second subs :)

Pay attention to getting excellent calibration frames, both darks and flats.
Median combined sky flats are recommended.

Oversample with smaller objects.

Consider spending the bucks on excellent software tools, such as MaxIm CCD, Gradient exterminator and Photoshop...they won't fix bad data, but will certainly enhance data worth keeping.

[AlexN]

Agreed, since I got my guiding going, imaging from the burbs has been a lot more rewarding.. I was doing 1~4 minute unguided subs previously, Now, using 20 min subs + cooled CCD, I find the data much more workable, Due to the fact that you can be less aggressive when stretching in order to get good detail to show...

[gregbradley]

Beautiful image. Gorgeous galaxy.

Dark frames are not as important as they used to be in the latest round of chips. I find I can be even slightly "careless" by using adaptive darks in CCDstack (where a 10min dark is used on a 15 min sub or vice versa or even a slightly different temp). The STL11 and other chips are noisier and you do need to take care.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies]

A very nice image Peter!! :thumbsup: I didn't see the over-saturated version but this one looks pretty damn fine to me! Lots of detail too for such a small object in spite of the seeing! Now, try adding another 10hrs of data! ;)

Cheers, Marcus

[wysiwyg]

Well captured Peter!

Stars are pin sharp and the detail is awesome :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

:lol: Thanks... Only another 10? Sure, but can you do something about the weather?