Centaurus A 10:40 hours

[gregbradley]

This image is from 2 sites over a year and also at 2 focal lengths.
TEC180fl at F7 and also at F11.2. All subs were from FLI ML8300.

I took about 5 hours at my dark site in Bigga.

I took another 5:40 recently from my front yard (about to move everything into the new observatory which is about 10 days away from completion).

Centaurus A is at an ideal position in the sky to image right now.

So a total of 10:40 hours. CCDstack aligns the different focal length images very well. I thought I would have to use Registar.

I am happy about the darkness of the skies and seeing at my new house. I have noticed there can be some slight green and magenta colour noise in the background imaging from here compared to my dark site where any noise is really from the processing not the sky. But its controllable and isn't that bad really.

It means I'll be able to produce a lot more images instead of having to travel and setup and hope the weather cooperates (it usually does there).

I've processed this one differently to how I've done it in the past.
I also have probably 4 hours of RCOS 12.5 inch data I could add to it.
That's the advantage of keeping a database of your earlier shots..


http://upload.pbase.com/image/124538865

Greg.

[TrevorW]

Nice Greg

colours good as is everything else but appears a bit bright on my screen

Cheers

[gregbradley]

Thanks Trevor.

I had another look at it and I think you have a point there. I did have slight reservation about the centre area. I shifted it slightly and am happy with this result. I am also trying to present the large star halo of this galaxy whilst not weakening the centre dust lane which tend to be conflicting targets.

Greg

[h0ughy]

nice image - interesting to note that everyone has their own unique experience capuring this area. I have spent just as many hours on it and i have not even come close to getting it right, yours shows more details and smoothness. The gear maketh the image ;)

[gregbradley]

Yes that's true. 2 imagers shooting the same object still present in subtley different ways. The TEC180fl doesn't hurt either!

Greg.

[peter_4059]

Another great image Greg. Very smooth.

Peter

[gregbradley]

Thanks Peter. The long total exposure pays off when you process the image.

Greg.

[tornado33]

yes great image, the blue jet seen here (http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/apod/image/0308/cena_eso_big.jpg) is visible in yours lower right!
Scott

[gregbradley]

Oh yeah, I never noticed that before. Thanks. That's very interesting. Seems an odd place for a jet. You'd think it starts at the core and goes further out. Maybe it does and that's the only part that shows up in LRGB filters.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

This image got Anacortes Image of the Day today. Woohoo.

Greg.

[Bassnut]

Congrats Greg !. Pretty deep and detailed, top work

[multiweb]

Well done Greg! :thumbsup: You've got that jet as well at 5 o'clock that everybody's talking about. Top shot. Smooth as and very deep. Congrats.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Fred.



That jet is an interesting thing. I'm glad it was pointed out as I never noticed it before.

Greg.

[Tilt]

The FLI ML8300 is an amazing camera, this image is smooth and highly detailed. Top shot Greg :thumbsup:

Michael

[strongmanmike]

Yeh not bad at all Greg, some nice rich colours there, I like it.

The halo looks a bit too blue though (very few young stars out there) and while the background core should certainly be bright you might like to try increasing the dynamic range just a bit to reveal a few more details in the brighter more exposed bits in front?

The halo of Cen A is actually not uniform either but rather has subtle dark patches and shells within, not sure whether you can bring these out..? maybe give it a go? It's hard to show everything in one single image... I know ;)

Great image :thumbsup:

Mike

[Hagar]

Nice image Greg. I am just not sure about the blue halos on the stars and the haze on the main stars. May be worth using some of your RCOS data even if just as a lum layer.

[gregbradley]

Yes it is a little beauty.





I can check out my RCOS data. The main problem I had with my RCOS data was the tracking whilst good was not always perfect at 2583mm focal length. Also as I recall the TEC180 gets better resolution than I was achieving back then with the RCOS or if not better than close to it.
Its worth adding though. I did one already where I added RCOS data - NGC6144 and the image was not as good. APO data seemed smoother.

Greg.

[RB]

Lovely shot mate, gorgeous rich colour detail in there !

:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Andrew. I now have my RC data to hand to add to it to see what happens.

I also have a new supercomputer laptop with an LED screen to speed up the process with some of these large files (not so much the 8300 camera but the 16803 camera where each 1x1 file is 32mb).

Greg.