Virgo Cluster around M84, M86 and M87

[marc4darkskies]

Finally! ... first (imaging) light for my new PME!

Here's a deep rendition of the Virgo cluster centered on M84, M86 and M87. Given my less than pitch black skies and its fairly low altitude (max 44 degrees), I'm pretty pleased with the result (especially since I only have 150mm of aperture!!).

I think I've struck a good balance with noise and faint detail too - not too smooth and not too grainy. But judge for yourself of course - often it's a matter of personal taste how much noise is tolerable.

There's a lot to see in this image!! A plethora of galaxies bright and faint, the jet at the core of M87 and faint tidal streams (look at about the 8 o'clock position from NGC 4435 and NGC 4438 for example) etc. I've also spotted and verified very faint streams in the darkness between M87 and NGC 4438 after doing some extreme stretching - not worth posting though, I'd need much darker skies to do them justice.

I really enjoy browsing this image and I hope you do too. Like all galaxy clusters, it has an awsomeness that a straight neb shot doesn't have.

Small:
http://upload.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/133798560/large

Large (3.9M):
http://upload.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/133798560/original

Cheers, Marcus

[alexch]

Stunning! The intercating galaxies at 8 o'clock are a showcase feature with the dust lanes and all.

Thanks for showing it.

Cheers,
Alex

[renormalised]

Well Marcus, there's one thing I can say about this piccie....brilliant :):)

The new mount has earnt its keep just with that one shot:)

[strongmanmike]

Nice comeback Marcus :clap:

Awesome galaxy field huh? sooo many in there and as you say lots to have a surf around, nice! I am looking at it on a vey forgiving screen at work so I will have another gander when I get home but at this stage the noise looks ok to me :thumbsup:.

Please post the stretched version showing those faint structures, who cares if it isn't a human eye natural version, be cool just to see'em.

Not sure the viewer is going to notice whether it was taken with a PME or EM400 but I imagine the imager (you) has noticed changes there.

I was considering this area as first light for the AG12 actually but I'm not sure I will have completed testing and have moved back to dark skies in time :sadeyes:

Another great job mate and yet another reminder that 1100mmFL and 6" can really take on the bigger guns :)

Mike

[SkyViking]

What a fabulous image! It's just awesome to swim around in that field, there is so much to see. Lots of globulars are showing around the giant ellipticals as well. I noticed you also captured the jet of M87. Very nice!

[marc4darkskies]

Thanks Alex! Yes, I love the detail in those small galaxies too - it's like the icing on the cake! :D It helps to have reasonable seeing too when you're imaging between 22 and 44 degrees altitude.



Cheers Carl! Yes, the PME works (!) and sure makes the work flow easier, but the real test will be imaging at longer FLs



Thanks mate!

Nah, you know the old astrophotographers adage - never post an image you're not completely happy with! There's also the one about always leaving the audience wanting more! ;):D The hyper-stretched image was just an experiment and not worthy of broad attention. There's just too much noise and even some residual gradient. I wish I could have darker skies :sadeyes: <sigh>

It would be great if you could image it too with the new scope - THAT would be interesting! So, hurry up with the testing!! ;)

The PME's claim to fame would not be noticeable in such a short FL image. My EM-400 would have produced the same result. Wait till I get my 14" DSI though (http://www.deepskyinstruments.com/rc14c.htm) :D - that will be the acid test!



Thanks a lot Rolf, glad you liked it! It's definitely an image that needs to be viewed and appreciated at full res! None of this 50% guff! :P:scared3:

[TrevorW]

OMG it's full of galaxies

actually quite good

[Ephemeral]

Gee that's a great image

[marc4darkskies]

Thanks guys! Even when I zoom in to 400% it's hard to find a patch that doesn't have a galaxy in it!

[h0ughy]

very nice Marcus, great sampler

[renormalised]

14" DSI....need to be a bit more ambitious, Marcus. Bump it up a few inches:):)

[strongmanmike]

Sorry, that ain't one of mine :shrug: heck, I have a few examples where I was still improving the image months afterwards, if I played by your adage the objects of my posts would often be out by seasons :lol:



Tomorrow will be the start by the looks of it...I am actually about as scared as I am excited :scared2:



Yeh..? I dunno, I think the EM400 would have handled a 14" CF RC, the beauty of the PME will be that you can have the 14" RC and the TOA mounted side by side and with ease, and have the robotic capabilities to boot :D

Soooo...that 14" DSI a deffinite or still a maybe..? ;)

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Alas, it's got to fit into a 2.4m dome when tandum mounted :sadeyes: Maybe I should upgrade that too!! :D ... NOT! :sadeyes:



Cheers Houghy! Got that dome working yet?



We all do that! It's just nice to know I can get to that depth from my location! Quite surprising really although my northern horizon is pretty dark. If I took some 30 min lum subs and sum combined I might have the S/N to to see them better. Hmmm, must try that!



May the new equipment gods smile upon you! :prey:



No, the EM-400 would start to struggle with a 32 kg scope plus 4 kg of imaging train.

The DSI is the best I've seen so far ... it's at the top of my list. If the AU$ reaches 1.10 (which they're suggesting might happen) I may just go for it!

[richardo]

Nice image here Marcus, especially for 6".. well not the size but the way you use it.. (dare I say it :rolleyes:)
Lots of little fuzzies floating in the background.

I would Guess you're enjoying the new mount;).. mmm, of course!

Man, love the look of the new scope you're going to get... wow, what a piece of precision art! And really, a very good price.

Rich

[atalas]

Wonderful field Marcus! eye popping shot.

[marc4darkskies]

Thanks a lot Rich! :) I think we're so used to seeing magnificent images from huge aperture scopes under dark skies we forget that the humble suburban 6" is very capable, albeit with longer exposures.

I think the DSI might give an RCOS a run for it's money ... at less than half the price (!) even with the fused quartz mirror and a Pyxis rotator! Not ready to outlay the $$ yet, but it's at the top of my list!



Thanks Louie, glad you liked it!

[gregbradley]

Another wonderful image Marcus. The stars are absolutely perfect. Your time spent setting up your mount so thoroughly has paid off.
Maybe I am imagining it but it seems to me the stars are more perfect than with your EM400. It all adds a bit more sharpness and detail that your terrific TOA can pick up. A rich galaxy cluster. How do guys find out about these great objects??

An RC14C does sound like a great buy. Roth Ritter posted many top images using the RCOS10 astrograph which RCOS stopped making for some reason. It'd be good though to talk to those using one to make sure it does what its supposed to.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies]

Thanks Greg! Perhaps imaging at the native FL of the TOA might have something to do with it ... perfectly flat field. The seeing was quite good too.

On paper the RC14C looks better than anything else I've seen and the images I've seen coming from it are spot on and seem to match the spec. Of course it has a lot to do with the skill of the person using it and that's the point - before you buy a scope for AP work you want to see the best that it can do in the hands of an expert. It puzzles me why makers of some scopes show sample images in their galleries that are not up to scratch.

[multiweb]

That is an amazing shot. Really superb. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

That sounds good about the RC14C. I know what you mean about some of the daggy images some manufacturers post. It doesn't inspire confidence.

Greg.

[mill]

Looks really good Marc :thumbsup:
Plenty of small galaxies in there and some nice clouds and jets.
I did this last year with the ED80 but couldn't get the detail you got here :lol:
Will have to use the 8" when i get the chance ;)

[Leonardo70]

What a field !!!
Stunning ...

Congrats,
Leo

[marc4darkskies]

Thanks a lot Marc, appreciate that.



Thanks Martin. In a dark room on a good monitor you will actually see some very faint fuzzies, hints of intergalactic streams and certainly some extended halos. Best if you use Firefox as well to render the embedded colour profile (sRGB).



Thanks Leo.

[h0ughy]

i have using the very simple ascom dome simply tracks the scope and moves when it needs to - as for Automadome - what a heap of software biskitt - wasted 250 for the software and a further 500 for thesky6 and tpoint - am i a tad bitter, well errr:mad2:

it shouldnt have been that hard:question:

i see you have everything working:P

[marc4darkskies]

That's too bad! :sadeyes: I'll soon be getting a new Laptop with Win7 64 bit. I'll let you know how it goes!

[h0ughy]

Marcus - document everything and screen capture every step - if yours works i need to find out why?:thanx::help:

[prokyon]

Yes, I do! A real stunner, great work!!!

Cheers

Werner

[Paul Haese]

A very nice image Marcus. I really like the galaxy in the center left of the image (the one with the dust showing); I don't know the number of it. Never really investigated this part of the sky, so I am unfamiliar with the category numbers.

I can see a very slight magenta caste to the image though. Nothing really distracting but it struck me upon opening the image though. Noise is nothing to worry about (I really could not see any real noise in the image) and it has been really well handled.

I really like the field of view too. Good detail and field make for an interesting look around the image. Lots of different types of galaxies. By my reckoning something like ten types there. Maybe more.

:thumbsup:

[dugnsuz]

Beautiful image Marcus - I keep seeing more and more in it...
"oh there's another one, and another"
The mount seems to be another top shelf toy for the toybox;)
Very nice indeed
Doug:thumbsup:

[marc4darkskies]

:) Thanks Werner!



Thanks a lot Paul! Yes, it's a menagerie, that's for sure!

There is no magenta cast at all that I can see here - even in a dark room :shrug:. Are you viewing the image with a good, calibrated monitor? Also, it' s best not to use IE8 or earlier to view my images because it won't render the embedded colour profile (sRGB). Use Firefox.



It's a bit like that :) Even zooming right in to 400% it's hard to find a patch that doesn't have at least one faint fuzzy in it. Thanks a lot Doug!

[Fabiomax]

I love this cluster of galaxies, it's great to see them so detailed. remarkable depth, congratulations!
Fabiomax

[marc4darkskies]

Thanks Fabio!

[Hagar]

Great image Marcus. So many big fuzzies and so many tiny ones in the background.

Lovely.

[marc4darkskies]

Cheers Doug! So many galaxies in the one field sure captures the imagination doesn't it! I wonder if someone from those far away realms has captured a faint Milky Way fuzzy in their DS image?

[renormalised]

I've always wondered about that too....and you can imagine someone thinking the same way in one of those galaxies as well:)

Just think, in some galaxy, say 60 million light years away, in 60 million years time, someone takes a shot of our galaxy and little do they know that at that very moment, they're capturing a photon coming from our Sun as it is right now:) I can imagine them speculating as to what civilisations are here and then, to their great surprise, a voice pops up from behind them and says "funny you should say that, I'm actually from that galaxy...a planet called Earth."...and they see a human from here standing right next to them:):). If we're still around, can you imagine how advanced we'd be in another 60 million years!!!.

[Hagar]

That's one big IF. The way we look after our tiny rock now doesn't look good for 60Million years time. But it is an interesting thought,just the same.

[David Fitz-Henr]

Just caught up with this one Marcus - as you know I am on a month's leave, so busier than ever with jobs around the house!! It's a brilliant image; love those crowded galaxy fields of view!! May even be my favourite one of all your galaxy shots!