Another beautiful spiral galaxy NGC1566

[gregbradley]

This was taken over 2 nights last week during the heat wave. The Planewave temperature sensors said it was 31.5C at 1am in the morning.

It seems the seeing was quite good though.

I also had a fan going on the floor of the observatory. Perhaps it helps as I have read it is supposed to reduce star sizes.

Taken at my home observatory.

LRGB 120 50 50 50, Proline 16803, Astrodon Gen 11 filters, Paramount ME, ST402ME guide cam on a MMOAG.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/132352670

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/132352722 crop

Greg.

[spearo]

nice!
Good to see someone is getting clear skies!
:lol:
frank

[TrevorW]

Aperture rules when shooting galaxies another fine image

[marc4darkskies]

Very pretty Greg! Another beauty!

If you haven't already (?), I'd try some MSDLBing to increase the galaxy details

Some slightly eggy stars bottom right corner of full frame too??

Cheers, Marcus

[RobF]

Bravo!
What a beauty! :eyepop:

[gregbradley]

Yes there were a few even if they were stinking hot!



Thanks Trev. I agree aperture rules with galaxies.



Thanks Marcus.

I fixed the stars and did a bit of sharpening on the crop. It seems pretty much at the limit of sharpening but perhaps another dose of decon may get a fraction more. Its already had one run through of decon but at 40 iterations.



Thanks Rob. It is a pretty sight isn't it.

Greg.

[atalas]

Great work on the Spanish Dancer Greg.....core brightness hiding some detail.

[astroron]

Nice shooting Greg, another one of my favourite galaxies :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

That's an amazing looking galaxy.

You have revealed a good extent of the outer flowing dress.

:thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Thanks Louie. I tried bringing out some more in the core but no luck so far. I may have to do it as I process the luminance. I'll give that another go and see if I can salvage more out of the core area. Any suggestions?



Thanks Ron. The southern hemisphere has quite a few nice galaxies. You just don't see them imaged as often as the northern ones.



Thanks Mike. I did a test image first to see if I would commit to imaging it. I liked the first download so I went for it.

Greg.

[alan meehan]

Greg another beautiful galaxy it looks like that thing is flying around,your a brave man who images in that heat,well done.
AL

[gregbradley]

Luckily everything is setup and I didn't need to be in the observatory
that long.

Greg.

[atalas]

Quote:

Thanks Louie. I tried bringing out some more in the core but no luck so far. I may have to do it as I process the luminance. I'll give that another go and see if I can salvage more out of the core area. Any suggestions?

What you said Greg,in the luminance....very tricky If the luminance core is saturated somewhat....could be, looking at the slight shift in hue of the core color...although I do like the color.

I think you see this If your luminance is too bright before combining with color.

Personally,It doesn't bother me because you've produced a beautiful looking galaxy!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Louie.

I'll check out the luminance and see if there is any extra data in the core in them.

I may need to shoot some 5 minute subs along with the usual 10 minutes subs to capture the core better on some galaxies.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Looks good Greg. colour balance seems pretty good except for one area just outside the core where the blue stars are a little turquoise. Other than that I really nice image. Must do some more galaxies myself.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Paul.

I worked on that area again and reduced the turquoise colour somewhat.
I also managed to tweak a little bit more detail out of the core area whilst retaining the colour.

Yes you have the setup for galaxies there. You've got around 2 metres plus the 8300 chip which makes things look bigger as well. I think we are imaging at similar image scales here.

My ML8300 is off for repair and when I get that back the galaxy images will be much larger and more in your face type images. But the 16803 gives a nice scale for most and lots of background yet good enough to take a certain amount of cropping to show more detail. It really is the best chip all round out there at the moment I think.

I wonder if they can make these big chips do ROI like webcams so you can get that extra image scale if you want it. But then again that is no different to cropping later on.

Greg.

[alexch]

What a lovely image, Greg! It's hard for me to comment on technical aspects but visually it is a real treat!

Thanks for sharing.

Alex

[renormalised]

Nice image, Greg...and very brave to be shooting in temps as high as they were!!!!.

[gary]

Hi Greg,

Simply breathtaking. Thank you!

[Paul Haese]

Yeah the colour is better now for sure.

You can do ROI in Maxim by cropping the image but like you said it is no different from cropping really. ROI really only helps get the frames down the pipe faster. It does not give increased image scale.

Must put this down for imaging soon. Certainly similar scale but not quite the same resolution I fear.:)

[gregbradley]

Thanks Alex. I am happy with how it turned out and I was wondering how well I was going to be able to image dim galaxies with this setup at my home location. It seems to be working out now I have worked out a processing workflow that handles the local conditions quite well. It took a while to figure it out but I think I have a handle on it now.



I had 2 fans in the observatory and I was in there maybe an hour sorting out things. Its always something.



Thanks Paul. Colour is always a hard point. At least its the finer colour points now so I am getting better at it.

Yes I figured the ROI would not help.

I guess with the 8300 chip it has smaller pixels as well which also helps get closer in.

I think you're setup will do very nicely.

Greg.

[Hagar]

Very nice Greg. Those spiral arms seem to go on forever. Nice detail considering the small size of the galaxy.