Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC2997 REPRO

[gregbradley]

"I did some extra colour work on the colour of the galaxy and some more star work. Also reduced the amount of background noise reduction so its less smooth."

I've always thought his galaxy was one of the prettiest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Not often imaged, it is a bit dim compared to other more popular galaxies.

I took this one last night at my home observatory.

Planewave CDK17, FLI Proline 16803, Astrodon Gen 11 filters, Paramount ME.
Sydney had about 3 clear nights this week with no moon - quite a rare event lately.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/132323742 crop

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/132323701 wider field.

Greg.

[atalas]

Greg,very beautiful galaxy....more contrast needed.

[Alchemy]

Nice, there is plenty of soft detail in the outer arms, good separation of color between the Ha areas and the blue star regions... Plus if I'm not mistaken a hint of galactic cirrus in the foreground. :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

Great colour and interesting target.

Just a couple of observations Greg. Your stars are not well aligned with the blue channel being down to the lower right hand side. This has also worsened the look of the stars on the right hand side of the image which look quite elongated.

I think if you did a realign your image would be sharper still and the stars would look pretty good.

[mill]

Looking good from here Greg :thumbsup:

[CoolhandJo]

Nice natural colours

[Ken]

That is a pretty Galaxy, well done. Must add this to my to do list.
Clear skies Ken.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Louie. I added some extra contrast and it did improve it.



Thanks for that.
May well be some cirrus.


Thanks Paul.

Good catch, I looked over the data again and the problem is in the Luminance data. Half the subs have some elongated stars the other half do not. I am in the process of redoing PEC for the mount and it could do with it at times. I think the polar alignment also needs a slight tweak. The RGB subs look fine but then 2x2 binning tends to round out stars anyway. I like this image a lot so I'll shoot some more luminance and maybe RGB after the PEC is redone and more polar alignment.
The other alternative is to redo the image with half of the luminance but that would be a waste. I've repaired the stars about as much as I can so its less obvious. Overall I think this about as good as I'm going to get this one without shooting more data which I will.



Thanks very much.



Thanks for that. Colour is always a hard thing and its good to know they turned out OK.



Thanks Ken. Yes it is in a good position at the moment.

[Peter Ward]

Another classy image. Well done :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Peter. It was another hot night last night so the less time spent in the observatory the better!

Greg.

[Enrique]

Greg: NGC 2997 is one of my favorites. I have been working on it but after seeing your picture it is clear I have a lot more work to do.

Regards,

Enrique

[marc4darkskies]

Nicely done Greg and hat's off to you for imaging last night! Too darn hot for me (and my camera) !!

Cheers, Marcus

[TrevorW]

Nice one Greg, way to windy here for me last night started imaging but the RC acts as a sail in 60+klm winds

[gregbradley]

Thanks Enrique. I hope you continue with your image.



Thanks Marcus. I had a fan inside the observatory on the floor for the scope and one for me as well.



Yes that would be challenging.

[desler]

Great image Greg, a first look for me!
Really inspriational stuff.

Darren

[strongmanmike]

Hey, great minds think alike :P

Nice result Greg, a great galaxy huh?

Some issues that have already been pointed out and for me the background looks a little flat and the blue a little turquoise, what do you think? Once again however, the image scale is marvellous and the potential huge :thumbsup:.

The imaging session for my 2997 started with the mercury just under 29C and I could only juuuust reach -30C but seems I missed the super hot night (I was on a cruise at sea!) Lucky we have FLI cameras huh? :lol:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Thanks Darren.



I always was impressed by this one. A tough target as it is small and dimmer than many other southern galaxies.

Not sure about the turquoise. There aren't many other images around but Daniel V's one is a similar colour. Background is a bit smooth. Noise control may have been a tad too much.

Another version will be on its way with another clear night so I'll leave it til then. I was getting -25C on the super hot night and left it there this night.

The cruise sounds great.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Taking a leaf from Mike's book I have also added a closeup of the core details of Galaxy NGC2997. Its quite interesting that there seems to be several bright points there in the core.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/132352358

I have also reprocessed the original images adding more of this core detail in although less enhanced than this crop.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Excellent Greg, looks like some little blobs inside the very central core, wonder what they are?

I went deeper too (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132352534/original):P

He, he Battle of the core's :thumbsup:...or should that be bulges?

[Peter Ward]

Ah yes Grasshopper, but can it do this?? (web control, even on an i-phone, as per attached image :D )

[gregbradley]

That is pretty cool.

Greg.

[Bassnut]

mm, very interesting slightly noisy non-rcos image comparisons there, well done.

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes, another rather redundant almost gimicky feature...bit like self guide ;) :poke: :lol:

[Peter Ward]

Err...it's still cool. And can self-guide, external guide, differential-guide
and has adaptive optics (well OK.. yet to be released)

and if you insist..... it is indeed spelt redundant :D

[astroron]

Nice pic, Greg:thumbsup:
NGC2997 was on a set of postage stamps taken by David Malin over ten years ago.
Cheers

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ron.

That's interesting. David Malin also got NASA APOD for it as well in 1996.

Greg.

[alan meehan]

What a beautiful Galaxy top shot GREG ,love to shoot this one myself
thanks
AL

[gregbradley]

Thanks Alan. I am pretty happy with it. It is one of my favourites.

Greg.

[FlashDrive]

That is very nice Greg ... You guys who take photos like these ... it's a real credit to your hobby .....:thumbsup:

[sjastro]

Very fine image Greg.

Regards

Steven

[gregbradley]

Thanks for the nice compliment!



Thanks very much Steven. I was happy with it.

Greg

[Hagar]

Very nice galaxy Greg, Colour is quite subtle and not as bright and sparkly as some I have seen. Probably very close to what the colour should be.
Well done Mate.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Doug.

Colour is always a tricky point in image processing.

Greg.