A Magellanic Cloud in Sagittarius..?? now with ultra zoom in

[strongmanmike]

With plenty of HII regions spread around it, Barnards Galaxy looks decidedly like a Magellanic Cloud but it's in Sagittarius.

At about 10' X 10' in size it is no where near the size of the LMC/SMC - it's a Mini Mag. :P

This is the third and last data set from the last image runs I had at new moon.

Seeing was typically pretty ordinary and it was a bit of a quicky but came out ok.

The PL16803 field is pretty big around this object but some galactic dust has shown up in the full frame wide field version, so worth a squizz :thumbsup:.

Info under each image

Close up of the galaxy (1.2meg)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125870582/original

Full Frame (30% full size 2.5meg)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125870479/original

Major HII regions labelled
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125937761/original

Ultra Zoom in on HII Bubble:
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125934423/original

Cheers

Mike

[JD2439975]

Ah sometimes a quicky is all you need Mike. :lol:

Damn I'd have to do at least 10 hours to even come close to that! oh the joy of high quantum efficiency CCDs... oh the pain, the pain. :sadeyes:

For a mini-mag it's still mighty purdy, few straight-line asterims in the top left of the full frame too (small things amusing small minds I think the saying goes). :stupid:

Edit:

Noticed in your cropped image, 3 o'clock, halfway to the edge is what appears to be an edge on galaxy...but not in the DSS image (see attached).

Caught a live one maybe?

[multiweb]

That's an awesome shot Mike. You got all the colors spot on. Top shelf. :thumbsup:

[SkyViking]

Just wonderful Mike :) It does indeed look like a mini Magellanic Cloud. Those HII regions really make it shine.
I wonder what the thing Justin found is - a mini meteor perhaps?

Now you just need to do a repro pinpointing its globular clusters... :D

[richardo]

This turned out very nicely with the limited amount of time.... really:thumbsup:!
Nice processing and I know this is a tough object to do justice to due to its low surface brightness.
The new CCD and starfire combo are proving a great setup, bringing in the photons quickly.

Definitely a successful data run bagging what you have.
Guess you really got to go for it when your out at your dark sky site.

Well done Migel!
Be at peace now my son, till the next dark clear nights call;)

Rich

[TrevorW]

Very nice image

[DavidU]

and what is this?(lower RH corner)

[JD2439975]

It's a clever little thing, can even move in a still picture. :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Justin

Although it is still an ABG (anti blooming gate) camera it is certainly still quite sensitive compared to DSLR's and web Cams etc

The unidentified galaxy looks to be a cosmic ray it would appear..? I have now fixed the rogue high energy skid mark :P. The issue for me in this image was that I only had two Ha and two Red frames (a slow moving sattelite or near Earth object traversed through three 5 min 1.6deg wide subs!) and this chip picks up cosmic ray hits like Tom Cruise picks up alien babes at a Scientology nightclub. To rid them I median combine my subs, problem is median combining only two subs doesn't get rid of random junk, you need at least three. The result was frame with lots of funny red flicks everywhere. I also added the Ha data to my Lum so the flicks ended up in the Lum too. Sigma reject combine may have worked but I prefer to use median in Astroart.....:shrug: Anyway, I manually removed (almost) all of them :lol:



Cheers Marc :)



Thanks, might be worth a look Rolf, I am sure there are a few?



Cheers Rich, yes it was a successful few nights, bagging three images with little issue. No marathons this time but stay tuned ;)



Thanks Trev, something not imaged that often :)



No Idea, see post above perhaps..?..looks like a couple of stars to me though :shrug:

[Bassnut]

:zzz2::zzz2::zzz2: ;), BUT, I do like the little red bright bits, they make this pic IMO, unusual :thumbsup:.

[gregbradley]

Nice one Mike. You capture some unusual objects sometimes. Good on you.
That one is definitely a real dark sky site imaging target.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Not every image has to be a spectacular vista with wowy colours, insane resolution and great composition etc etc, every bit of our sky is really just as valid as the next. Sometimes an image is just that, an image, of something real, something that is just well... there, whether it is spectacular or not :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

LOL you and the rest set the bar up there - just what we expect every time Mike;):lol:. Great sampler shot Mike

[bmitchell82]

Great shot Mike i always thought that this was just a boring galaxy, as all the images i have seen have always been just a orange elliptical galaxy..

Fred maybe you can zoom in on one of those h2 regions and show us what the details look like. :) now that would be cool. Here is the overall image, and here is what the little pieces look like :) Go on Fred hit it like its hot

[Bassnut]

Love to, Ill give that shot next clear night, good idea.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Brendan

Here's a start on the zoom in :D. The Starfire does a good job at just1300mm FL and an hour and a half or so of data but I too would like to see it attacked with real focal length and exposure time :thumbsup:

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125934423/original

Mike

[Robh]

(Post 7)
A quick search turned up galaxy PGC 922095, coords 19 43 30.3, -14 37 53, apparent magnitude 17.25.

Regards, Rob

[OICURMT]

How in the world do you guys spot things like this... when I view this, my reaction is simply...

"My god, it's full of stars!"

[strongmanmike]

Hey that's cool :thumbsup:...I wonder how many galaxies I cloned out thinking they were cosmic ray hits :doh::lol:

[JD2439975]

WOW Mike :eyepop: if that ultra-zoom had double the FL on it that would be a truely, truely spectacular image.
Looking at it I just kept wanting to adjust the focus(not that it was out) to grab that extra detail in the bubble.

Fred you really have to do a deep one of that object if you find the time, would be well worth the effort.

Thanks for adding that Mike, what an eye opener.

[strongmanmike]

Agreed.

Longer focal length alone would be a little anticlimactic however I would expect, with excellent seeing though, well, the details should just pop right out :)..the seeing on the night this was taken was pretty bluddy ordinary unfortunately, I had to work a little magic just to show this amount of detail :thumbsup:.

[strongmanmike]

Here are the largest HII regions labelled with their roman numeral designations, given to them by Edwin Hubble after looking at 100" Hooker telescope plates.

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/125937761/original

Mike

[JD2439975]

It's times like this that living on a mountain in the middle of a desert would be the best place on earth...Atacama...very nice, but a bit far away...wonder if they'd mind if you setup overlooking Pine Gap. :lol:

[strongmanmike]

Atacama, can you imagine??? Sheeesh it would kill us! Some places there get over 300 totally clear nights a year! :eyepop:

[JD2439975]

300!!

OK now I'm spiraling into a deep depression. :sad:

[strongmanmike]

Nah..:cheers::drink:= :party::2thumbs:

[Hagar]

Very nice Mike. I have imaged this a few times and never ended up with anything quite like this image. Great stuff.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks a lot Doug, glad you liked this kinda.. rarely imaged?? galaxy. The data was pretty thin I guess as it was a "fill in" image taken before dawn and it took a fair amount of Sidonio magic (excessive repros) to bring it to this final view :lol:

Cheers

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Are you sure about this???? :P Who are you trying to convince??? ;)

A splendid image all the same. In fact I don't think I have seen a modern image of this galaxy. I have often seen reference to the galaxy in charts and considered imaging it but I cannot remember seeing an image of this quality before.

Some very minor defects and non worth rectifying. :thumbsup:

[jase]

For a quick and dirty, its a pleasing result Mike. Looking at a few of your recent images, I'd say you've got the 'kid in a candy store' vibe at the moment. You've got your new camera and you're trying to collect as many photons as possible across numerous targets to tests its capabilities. Whilst theses are good, once the vibe wanes I expect we'll some some truly spectacular work. The 16803 doesn't take long to tame.

[strongmanmike]

:lol: Thanks Jase

Not sure what you were expecting though :shrug: no mozaics I guess, is that what you mean :shrug:. I was pretty happy with the M104 shot..seems to me to be as good or better than most examples out there..? The Cats Paw is a solid image, not sure that it could be HUGELY better even with more exposure :shrug: and I guess Barnards galaxy is, well...Barnard Galaxy :shrug:


So..? :shrug:...that's a few shruggs :shrug: :shrug: :question: :P

[tornado33]

I love seeing equipment pushed hard, teasing ever finer detail out. That bubble looks like a carbon copy of the N70 nebula in the LMC and as you say the galaxy looks like the LMC. This is one of the finest colour images of this object ive seen. Well done.

[Bassnut]

Get back to the Mike standard we expect ie "spectacular", this is not spectacular ;) :mad2:.

[strongmanmike]

:question:.... :drink:??? :screwy:

[Bassnut]

Yep :P ;), sorry, cant help myself, dont take it seriously Mike :thumbsup:.