NGC 6744 in Pavo good seeing

[kinetic]

Well eventually I got there.....
Here is the target I meant to get 2 nights ago.

NGC 6744 is described as "one of the most Milky Way-like"
galaxies in our neighbourhood.

Tonight, as I made my 'pre-processing coffee' once packed up,
I looked down on the kitchen counter at the USB 4Gig stick
with these raws on it.
It dawned on me that on there was a snapshot from 25 million
years ago of a galaxy just like ours if I was lucky.

Steve

[Dennis]

Hi Steve

A very nice image of this lovely galaxy, easily one of my favourites. For 5 sec sub frames, you have recorded some amazing detail in the fainter outer arms.

Cheers

Dennis

[multiweb]

That's awesome mate! Some real nice details coming through in the outer spiral. Nice :thumbsup:

[Ric]

Nice imaging Steve with some really good detail showing through.

Top stuff.

[kinetic]

Thanks Dennis, Marc and Ric for your comments.

It certainly is a beauty hidden away there in Pavo.

Steve

[peter_4059]

Nice capture Steve.

It looks like you've acquired a dust spot on the left in your more recent images - any plans to clean the DSI or go for flats? My tip is go easy on the iso-propyl alcohol.

Peter

[Hagar]

Very nice Steve, Longer subs is the way to go. How is you mount progressing? Guiding and longer subs will leave us all gasping at your results.

Keep at it Mate.

[dpastern]

5 sec subs, wow. That's an amazing amount of detail for such short subs. There's hope for me yet (since I just can't seem to get good polar alignment yet and guiding isn't happening, and probably won't for quite a while).

Dave

[kinetic]

Thanks Doug, sorry we haven't caught up for a while, the mount
is ready for the worm-changeover on the RA axis right now.
See the worm hobbing thread (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=43091) in ATM.
Doing the changeover will be quite a big task....it will take the
scope out of action for a few nights while I mount it all in place
and it replaces the current spur gear gearbox/stepper arrangement.
Then the real acid test begins...a few nights of testing it's positional
accuracy around the full circumference of the worm gear.
If it's terrible and can't be PEC corrected, it's coming straight back
off and back to the spur gears.
I can EASILY get 10-15sec subs on a night of exceptional seeing
but 5 second subs freeze the seeing on poor to good seeing nights.
The info is all there right down the bottom end of the histogram
if it's a coold night and the noise floor is good.
I'm flabbergasted why people aren't doing this more....at least with
big light buckets attached, certainly doesn't need autoguiding on
a permanent setup with good polar alignment.
I do a hand corrected nudge in Dec and/or RA probably every 5 mins
or so with these sets which take about 45mins to an hour.
That's not bad tracking!



Yes Pete, I have noticed it too.
I'm just lazy and haven't removed it yet.
I think it's on the Baader IR in the filterwheel.

Steve

[kinetic]

I did a quality cull of 75% on the frames.
Here is 363 best of 421 frames.
Not a lot of difference, maybe a bit noisier if anything.

Pic one has had curves to show the outer spiral structure.
Pic two shows more of the centre area.
There is a lot of info in these frames.
I wish I could tease it out like the pros do...they make it
look so easy!

Steve