Galaxy gems in Antlia - close up of core detail added

[strongmanmike]

Just got back from a 3 night cruise on the Pacific Pearl - what a blast and fantastic experience (t'was a comedy crusie...man :lol:), already deciding on the next cruise :thumbsup:

Anyway...last Tuesday night I managed a few hours of darkness on a super hot night, the FLI was a godsend again as it managed to juuuust hold -30C while it was still hovering just under 29C ambient when I finally started imaging at 10.45pm - sheesh! :eyepop:

I imaged the beautiful nearly face on spiral galaxy NGC 2997 in Antlia - a reasonably small to modest sized and faintish galaxy (8.5' X 6.5' surface brightness 22.5mag/sq arc sec). Not as much exposure as I would have liked so I composed a sythetic Lum from the RGB (all binned 1X1) and added that to the megre 80min of Lum data I gathered.

IT looks pretty lonley sitting in a 1.6deg X 1.6deg field but of course..if you look closely the field is full of many distant galaxies!

See the 100% resolution crop of NGC 2997 in Antlia HERE (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132322958/original)

See deep inside the galaxy core HERE (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132351014/original) approx 5' X 5' FOV and even deeper in HERE (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132352534/original) :D

And of course..I have put together the usual album of 100% full frame to highly zoomed in close up variations Here (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/ngc_2997)

Can someone identify what looks like a ring galaxy visible through the galaxy arms..? - see super zoomed crop in the album.

Man I had fun on the cruise, maybe I will trade in my astroimaging a little and go on a few more cruises :question:

MIke

[h0ughy]

twas a warm night mike you sea dog!!;) nice work

[desler]

Sensational Mike, Love floating around in the full frame, lot's happening there!

Very nicely presented.

Darren

[strongmanmike]

Eie me hearty ;).

Do you know what the little galaxy is..? :shrug: I haven't got the full depth in Star Atlas Pro :sadeyes:

MIke

[marc4darkskies]

Very nice Mike! Especially considering you're a bit light on with data. I like the faint fuzzies of course but, as you might expect, I prefer the full res crop :D. For such a small object you've certainly got some great detail going on in there too. Good one!



BLASPHEMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :prey: :screwy:

[strongmanmike]

Yeees, tell me about it :rolleyes:, with these hot short nights and without an observatory (oh the travelling) ...I need a bigger faster scope :question: :D



Yeh, some more exposure would have shown them even better plus the seeing was very average..., we know what is possibkle with our six inchers when the seeing cooperates huh? ;)




Juuust kidding...although the skies were pretty dark 30 miles off shore :P

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Darren

The full frame in the album is only 50% res too, 100% was just to big and the galaxy field isn't that dense really, lots of tiny winny almost stella faint fizzies but not many good little ones though. I posted the full frame version mainly just to show the field size, for a sense of scale :thumbsup:

Mike

[Exfso]

Great shot as usual Mike. Just for info I was browsing through the equipment credits at the bottom of the image, and wanted to see info on the light box you have. Astro handy website seems to have done a runner. Are they still in business?

[ballaratdragons]

Fantastic Mike!!!

Only just a tiny tad slightly better than my Antlia Galaxy Cluster image :P

:lol:

A very neglected area of the sky beautifully captured :thumbsup:

[atalas]

Hey,real nice!! needs spikes...:lol:

[strongmanmike]

I agree, there is a great galaxy cluster in the area too, was this the one you nabbed? Where's your shot..? :shrug:

Mike

[strongmanmike]

The new scope will provide them :rolleyes: :lol:

[ballaratdragons]

Here's mine Mike. From back in January 2009 :)

Widefield of most of the whole Cluster (or what would fit on the chip)
and a crop showing the main area of the cluster :thumbsup:

Antlia Galaxy Cluster in the constellation Antlia.

ED80, Canon 350d, 5 x 15min @ 800iso, INCR, stacked in Registax 3, processed in PhotoShop CS.

[Rob_K]

Lovely shooting Mike! :thumbsup: Not a huge amount of luck with the little ring galaxy - overlaid a heap of galaxy catalogues in Aladin and the nearest I could come up with was GALEX J094558.7-311304, but it doesn't seem to be a perfect match. Bit beyond me to access the GALEX databases from their site, but they are online:
http://www.galex.caltech.edu/

Other people have imaged it -
http://panther-observatory.com/gallery/deepsky/doc/NGC2997_F9.htm

Great shooting too Ken!!

Cheers -

[gregbradley]

Very nice Mike. It is a great target.

You were brave doing HaRGB knowing you travel for your setup. It turned out well though. You got some nice detail there as usual more than I would have expected. Why did you decide to do Ha instead of luminance?

I'll have to take some Ha as well to bring out the core more.

Greg.

[SkyViking]

Wonderful as usual Mike, I just love these galaxy vistas. Can't wait to get my new camera so I can take some proper deep fields :)

[multiweb]

Beautiful galaxy. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Great field Kenny, something about masses of faint fuzzies in a vast field that a specy colourful neb just can't match huh? :thumbsup:



Cheers Robbo

Funny, tyhe little ring galaxy is not that faint really..? Maybe it's part of the galaxy after all...don't think so though :question:



Ooops sorry, missprint t'was a LRGB :thumbsup:...some Ha might be good though. Yeees travel..:rolleyes:...I know I harp on but fair shake of the sauce bottle and suck of the sav sheesh, I recon I will go mad, really need a bigger faster scope huh? ;)...and an observatory :sadeyes: :violin:



Thanks Rolf
Yes the new camera will be an epiphany for you :thumbsup:



yes she is Marc...nearly as beautiful as the lagoon :love: :P

[richardo]

This is a lovely galaxy and one I think can be hard to get accurate colour to.
You've done a great job I think with the amount of time spent on it.
I only looked at the 100% crop.
Yes, the lovely astrograph you're expecting will do wonders to these smaller gals... for sure!

Mmmm, sounds like a booze cruise Mike :)... takes me back when I lived on the Goldie in '81 as a 19 yo... our cruise was supposed to go right up to almost Moreton Bay, it was for The Golden girs (bikini models)we only got a few K's up from Labrador docks, the captain locked himself in the cabin and turned the boat around due to people having... mmm... toooo much fun:D I won't elaborate ;) they were the days:rolleyes:

With all your social commitments, great you even got out to your site.

All the best
Rich

[strongmanmike]

I almost never look at other images of what I am processing before I process, I always wait until after I have finished and then only sometimes do I have a surf looking at the variations, I have to say I usually get pretty close to the better images (well what I recon are the better ones anyway :P) so I imagine they are doing the correct G2V'ish typ'a thing :P...sooo I must be doing something right and my screen must be a good'un :thumbsup:. The best ones of 2997 I found were by Rob Gendler and the Capella Observatory in Namibia - higher res than mine as they are longer FL and much bigger scopes but the colours look similar.

BTW, Look at this super close up of the core (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132351014/original)- only 6" and 1300mm FL remember :P



slightly shorter FL actually (1140mm vs 1300mm) but much faster and twice the aperture :thumbsup::prey:



Hmmm a naughty boy once huh? :whistle: :lol:



Friggin hell I tell you, maaaaan, I deserve a bleeding medal I recon! :mad2:

:lol:

[mill]

Looking good Mike :thumbsup:
Doing this tonight with the ED80 if the weather stay's clear.
Hope i suck enough photons in with the QHY9 :P

[gregbradley]

Interesting core. I redid my luminance and did a careful stretch enhancing as I went along. I got the same thing, a core plus 3 bright areas to the left like globs close to the centre.

Greg.

[John Hothersall]

Very nice Hi-Res image, there are so many choice galaxies here in the Southern skies. I wondered what had become of you last week, so you have sea legs as well?

John.

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Martone, I look forward to your image:)



Yes, interesting stuff huh?...and great for the inane stiring comments it draws outta Freddo :lol:



Thanks John, you have deffinitely moved to the better hemisphere :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

The wide field of this is superb. Love the colours and the sharp detail. Nice work SM.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Paulie, without an observatory and armed with only a small portable (well, kinda :rolleyes:) outfit it is hard to go really deep but considering the final exposure I was happy enough with the outcome in the end :thumbsup:.

Glad you liked the wide field, not as galaxy rich as some other areas but there may well be some galactic cirrus showing in lower central-left quadrant - shows in the full res full frame version better (not posted on my site).

Mike

[Logieberra]

Wow, the Full Frame is awash with galaxies! Sweeeet!

[Hagar]

Nice one Mike. The cruise sounds like a bit of fun. Not like sitting outside all night on your own snapping images. The detail you have captured in such small galaxies is ab testament of the quality of your gear and your ability to use it.
Very nice.

[strongmanmike]

Yeh, love that look, shame the seeing wasn't better and I wasn't able to go longer with the exposure buuut se la vi :thumbsup:



Cheers Mr Horrible

Yeh the cruise was great, I hardly even thought about astronomy the whole time either except the first night high up on the bow deck leaving Sydney Harbour, the sky looked beautiful leaving the heads and I ended up explaining to a few around us all about Orion and Alpha Centauri - couldn't hellp myself :P

Mike

[Leonardo70]

Fantastic Mike...

Ciao,
Leo

[strongmanmike]

Grazie per le gentili parole Leo :)

Michele

[David Fitz-Henr]

Superb image as usual Mike! All versions are great, with the wide field being my favourite. Tack sharp to the extreme corners, good star colours, and the detail in the galaxy has been expertly processed! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Dave

The AG12 is very close now, I have seen pictures of her on the assembly line in the UK..still :prey: ing.

Mike

[David Fitz-Henr]

Excellent - it'll be like Xmas again!! From what I've seen it should be a very nice scope indeed!! :thumbsup: The specs sound perfect; in fact it may be almost as good as the one I'm building ;) :P

[gregbradley]

Now no pressure or nothing but we are expecting images superior to Wolfgang!:rofl:

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Wadda ya meeeean ...sheesh, already done that, man, he's ho hum noooow :P

[gregbradley]

You better starting growing an afro now to get the right "setup".

Greg:rofl: