Ngc1531/2

[Ken]

Hi finished this the other day I thought this was a interesting area with the pair of interacting Galaxies in Eridanus. I had a very uneven background that I think is stray light from the laptop screen getting past the open truss of the telescope. I put the laptop in a box since then but now it over heats and shuts down in the middle of a imaging session.:mad2:

18" f4.5 Newt. with QHY9 camera lum= 80 red=120 green=60 blue=130

all taken 2x2 bin.
Clear skies Ken.

[TrevorW]

Interesting I like

[gregbradley]

Very good capture Ken.

Greg.

[CoolhandJo]

Nice and interesting shot!

[Inmykombi]

Very nice details Ken.

Also, in the 10 o'clock position next to the bright star in your image, there is a red ring. Is that a planetary nebula or is it something left over from the image capture or processing ?

Rgds.

geoffro.

[Paul Haese]

Not seen this galaxy around much. Well done on the capture.

[Ken]

Thanks for the replies Trevor, Dr Paul , Geoff I would think the red ring is a reflection from the bright star not sure why it is only on the red filter?. Paul I had this Galaxy pair on a list I have that is well placed at the moment in the sky, when I started imaging it looked very interesting then I realized it was the same object that Martin Pugh had done a great image with a little time ago.
Clear skies Ken:)

[Octane]

Ken,

Wow, up to your usual extreme small stuff imaging again!

That is such a beautiful galaxy, and, you've done a great job on it.

Well done. : )

H

[Ken]

Thanks for the reply Humayan, the seeing from my site is usually poor and the heat in the observatory was high, making conditions less than ideal but overall I am pleased with the image.
Clear skies Ken

[Enrique]

Ken:

What an interesting and beautiful image! It is in my list for 2012.

The curiosity bug: you are binning 2x2 and your scale is about 1 arc sec per pixel. Have you tried to apply drizzle to your images while stacking even though you are not oversampling?

Regards,

Enrique

[PeterM]

The Woomera galaxy, very nice image.
PeterM.

[John Hothersall]

Love this one as its so unusual, structure showing nicely.

John.

[Ken]

Thanks for the replies John and Peter never herd of the Woomera galaxy but the name suits. Enrique I don't know much about Drizzle I just doubled the image size for each colour layer before stacking. With my average seeing and tracking 3x3 binning might have returned the same result in less time.
Clear Skies Ken.:)

[FlashDrive]

That's an excellent shot ... I'd be pleased if I got that result ..!!
Keep going Ken .... Time and practice is your best friend ..!! :thumbsup:

[richardo]

Nice job on this great galaxy!

I have some lum data on this from two years back, must finish it off some day.

Well done.

Rich

[multiweb]

Great shot. A mate calls this one the 'leaping frog' galaxy (with its back leg up). DSOs are like clouds. Everyone sees something different in it. :)

[Ken]

Thanks for the encouragement Colin I usually get out every clear night.Rich get that colour data while you can, and Marc you have a frog fetish :lol:
Clear skies Ken.

[Hagar]

Very nice Ken, certainly one not seen much on this forum.

[alan meehan]

Hi Ken lovely shot
well done

[Starkler]

Nice to finally a shot of one of my favourite galaxies here :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Great looking image Ken, I like the composition :thumbsup:

The galaxy reminds me of the pose a woman takes when kissing a man with her leg bent up behind her :question: :P

Mike

[Leonardo70]

Congrats, very nice ...

Leo

[Ken]

Thanks Doug I am surprised this galaxy is not more popular although it does look dim in short exposures. Also thanks to Allan, Geoff and leo for your comments. Mike a man and woman in an entangled kiss maybe we both need a cold shower.:lol:
Clear skies Ken.

[rogerg]

Nice galaxy :) You've got a lot of good detail there. The noise is a bit distracting for me, especially where it brightnes along the right edge, but I shouldn't complain about noise as it's usually a problem in my pics :)

[dugnsuz]

Jeez that's nice Ken - well done
Doug

[Ken]

Thanks for the comments Doug and Roger the noise and artifacts can creep up when pushing the processing to show a lot of the faint detail. These images were taken on some of the hottest nights I can remember the QHY9 had the cooling system at max -22c, normally I run it at -31c.
Clear skies Ken.

[prokyon]

Awesome! Done with 18" f4.5 Newt. , what a weapon.
Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Werner

[jones]

Oh my... how... I don't even... how do you track the object with an 18" newt?

[Ken]

Werner and Salva the 18" is a bit of a beast I let it out to play now and then, although I have never really tamed it.;)
Clear skies Ken

[jones]

:) Ken, what I meant, is that obviously you don't have that monster on a German equatorial mount, so how's the picture shot?

[Bassnut]

Excellent, 18" f4.5 certainly does the trick there. I obviously have to ask given the round stars and OTA, what kind of fancy mount do did you use ?.

[Tilt]

Very nice Ken, good to see another fine image from the 18" newt!

Michael

[Ken]

Salva the mount is a home made fork made from plywood connected to a 11.5" r.a. worm wheel, the dec shafts are just 2" gal water pipe with flange fittings. The dec drive is a 40" ply wood disc with friction drive from a dob driver unit connected to a Argo Navis. I guide using a O.A.G. and loadstar the mount cost less than a couple of paramount counter weights:lol:.
Clear skies Ken.

[Bassnut]

Oh I know that pain. Very well done Ken, qudos to you.

[Ken]

Hi Fred, nothing fancy about the mount just a lot of work making it all work like it should. Active optics are on my wish list.
Hi Michael thanks for the kind words, been a bit quite from yourself and David guess been a bit busy.
Clear skies Ken.