Centaurus A

[gregbradley]

I had a thunderstorm at my dark site yesterday afternoon and it looked like the night may have been lost. But behold! at dark right on schedule the sky was clear and the seeing was better than normal.

I dismantled my TEC180 refractor and setup the AP140 for a widefield image I was planning. After about 2 hours of unexpected little problems I had to scuttle that as the Apogee filter wheel stopped working. So I quickly reassembled the TEC180 setup and by then it was after midnight. I thought the night was going to be a writeoff but this salvaged it.

I decided to check out Centaurus A as it is fairly bright as galaxies go.

It looked good and a lot of the time the scope was imaging near the zenith which is always good.

TEC180, field flattener, FLI Microline 8300, Baader clear filter, Astronomik RGB, Tak NJP mount.

LRGB 110 50 50 60 for a total of 4:30 hours. Seeing 7.5/10 approx. (stars quite stable for 2/3rds of the sky).

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/109533611

Greg.

[renormalised]

Great piccie for a write off night!!!!.....Great work, Greg:)

The detail in the dust lane for what's a relatively large FoV is exquisite:)

[strongmanmike]

Having the notoriety of being perhaps the person who has single handedly completely bashed the hell out of Centaurus A to such an extent that some people are probably happy to if they never see an image of it ever again....:sadeyes:....I have to say..?... I'm not one of them!!! :D...this is a very nice image of the galaxy :thumbsup: Lots of bright halo there and even a faint glimpse of a little Galactic Cirrus too I think..?

Nice!

Mike

[Quark]

Hi Greg,

Very nice image. There has been several 5128 images posted and this is another fine example.

What sticks out in this image for me is how well resolved the delicate and quite subtle detail in the slightly offset extension of the central dark lane to the left of your image. The detail within the main section of the dust lane is usually what stands out in these images but that offset extension of it is just so well defined in this image.

Regards
Trevor

[gregbradley]

Thanks for that. I blended in a layer where the dust lane was enhanced as otherwise it gets a bit washed out when you push the galaxies halo.
This TEC scope is a beaut and the seeing was better than normal. Funny how thunderstorms seem to do that, blow everything away and the skies afterwards are wonderul.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Mike. I checked your version to see if I had the colours right!
Yes you really have explored this one. I may add time to it later as it is still rising and it is in a good position now for imaging over the next month or so.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Trevor. Yes I see what you mean. A lot of the time the scope was pointing almost straight up. It gave me a problem really as I had to get up at 3am to do the meridian flip and the camera filter wheel was still going to hit the pier on the other side so I had to sit with it and image another 30 minutes before I could flip it. Seeing was very good. I notice seeing is picked up more by this scope than I have noticed before. Poor seeing makes the the image look like it is a bit out of focus.

Greg.

[Ric]

Wonderful image Greg, the halo looks fantastic as does the central lane.

I never get tired of viewing this galaxy.

Cheers

[h0ughy]

very nice Greg, lovely shot.

[bluescope]

It's nice when what starts out as a disaster of a night turns out to be a gem ... nice image Greg !

:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ric. It is a pretty amazing galaxy. That dust lane and core look pretty violent.

Greg.



Thanks Houghy.

Greg



Yes it was a relief to walk away with something to show for it. Especially when you know its perfectly clear and great seeing.

Nothing worse than wasting the clear skies fiddling with complicated gear and then getting it working and then the clouds roll in! Its happened.

Greg.

[bloodhound31]

That is absolutely lovely Greg.

Baz.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Baz!

Greg.

[spearo]

very very nice
excellent work there
well done
frank

[gregbradley]

Thanks Frank!

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Sweet image Greg, nice to see that some of us like going deep.:thumbsup:

[iceman]

That's terrific Greg, beautiful result.

[Garyh]

Very nice Greg! lovely vibrant and crisp!
Looking forwards to doing this again with the new 8"!
:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Paul. I think I will add to this one over the next month or so. It is still rising so there is time. Mike has shown it is worth the effort. Not all objects are and sometimes that is the problem - what is worth spending long hours in a limited time budget?




Thanks Mike I am glad you liked it.



It came out better than I expected with the limited time I had. Close to the zenith plus excellent seeing helped a lot. An 8" would capture this very nicely. It is quite bright for a galaxy.

Greg

[jjjnettie]

:thumbsup: Top shot!

[atalas]

Nice shot Greg!

[jase]

Great Cent. A Greg. Colours look on the money. I'm going to cut to the chase - how do you find the 180 for imaging? (How much is in the hype is the subtle question?). Does it meet your expectations or would you ditch it tomorrow for an AP180EDT on Astromart? (Maybe it is me expecting more in the output from such an exquisite instrument).

Thanks.

[Paddy]

Very nice indeed!

[gregbradley]

Hmm, expect more what does that mean?



Thank you.


Thanks Jeanette.



Thanks Louie.

[jase]

The ML8300 (with 5.4um) + 180 (which has a theoretical res of .66 arc). If I've crunched the numbers correctly, you're getting .88 arcsec - oversampled data...which is always better than undersampled, but I'm wondering if you're running any deconvolution here. I'd expect the stars and details to really "pop". Wouldn't the U16 be a better match?

[RB]

Greg that's a beautiful rendition of Cent A, just beautiful.

:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Andrew. I am pleased you like it.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

To make something pop I think is more a question of focal length and total length of exposure and probably a little less the camera. I think overall the U16M is the better camera as per this:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/108830707/large

And the FLI Microline 8300 is no slouch either with this:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/109538475

Both of the above are with the TEC180mm.

I was thinking of using the U16M with the Baader fluorite flatfield converter which will do anywhere between 2X and 8X depending on the spacing. But that would give me F14 to F40. Great for planets. Not sure what that means with imaging. I think it means long exposure time for that size aperture. what do you think? 17 megapixels and high QE with deep wells and very low noise chip has got to do something nice! It'd be an expensive experiment though if it didn't work out as I can easily use a Powermate to get focal length for planetary work.

I got the ML8300 specifically to get better image scale whilst retaining the F5 of the BRC and the F7 of the TEC.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ric.

Greg.