Ngc 3579/3584

[bmitchell82]

I have wanted to do this shot for a long time, though not having the guiding nor camera to do it, I alway put it to the side for the one night pile! well one night came last night with good seeing, calm cool weather and crystal clear skies! here is the 1st installment of a 5 filter image.

3hrs @ 15min ea qhy9 -25dC bin 1x1 astronomiks 13nm ha filter
EQ6, 254 newt, OAG+402-me

FWHM of the image is 3.6

I have also put in a screen dump to show you guys what im currently guiding on as i havn't modified the height to gain true focus! Love the coma!

Full res 1.15mb here (http://brendanmitchell.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/NGC3584-Ha-3hrs.jpg)

[Heath]

That's an awesome shot Brendan.

There is great depth in this image. :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Beautiful Ha shot. Started resolving that little cluster in the center of the neb. Nice. :thumbsup:

[bmitchell82]

Thanks Heath and Mark, its great to be able to push out to the 15 minute guided sessions I was contemplating 20 minutes but im worrried that I will start burning out regions. who knows though, as i get more accustomed to the sensitivity ill work my way up.

And yes mark its good to be able to resolve most of that little cluster it should make for a lovely little image once i get the RGB.

A question for the mass's as well, seems though this is a predominantly Ha region, would i be gaining much by doing Luminance or will the Ha be good enough for that so forget it and just skip to the RGB?

[atalas]

Off to a great start!

[Ross G]

Thanks Brendan,

A new object to me...what an amazing structure!


Ross.

[gregbradley]

Superb Brendan. That is just excellent.

Greg.

[Bassnut]

That is very good indeed, tight and lots of detail, well done Brendon.
You have that EQ6 tuned well.

[DavidU]

Brilliant shot !. Your handy work and attention to detail with your equipment is great. Well done, and I hope to see more fine images.

[bmitchell82]

Yes it is, hopefully this is going to be my first mega data image something around 10hrs is what I am aiming for


Its beautiful isn't it with the loop that comes over


Thankyou greg, it means a lot. Im always aiming to get my images to stack up with your images and others on this site



The white turd is highly polished more than you can believe. Ive had my ups and downs and wanted to do the hammer throw with it because i was so angry... 3hrs of 10min images with only zero good to keep will do that to you :) At the end of the day it has all come down to actual guiding that makes them run perfectly... :)



Thanks david. I hope to produce more. Im still on a uni student budget so i have to make do with what i have.

Thank you all once again it drives me to work hard. It also shows others that with modest equipment you can produce good results.!:thumbsup:

[CoolhandJo]

Nice target, great image. I agree with Fred

[RobF]

Great going for sure Brendan. Nice FOV you have there and the noise has come out very nicely in the end. The OAG seems to be coming together very well for you too. :thumbsup:

[bmitchell82]

Thanks Paul and Rob.

Its amazing what long exposure times do for the final image that coupled with lots of images give the SNR a good hit. It will be interesting to figure out how long my colour images will need to be so i don't get any blow out.

mmm 3 weeks till the new moon arrives! hopefully i will get the extra 4-6hrs of data i need to give some real punch to this image!

[RobF]

Yes, burn out isn't hard with the QHY9 smaller well size and a big Newt. I think it depends a lot on how bright the object and stars are in your field. Still, there's a lot more headroom over a DSLR to play with too in the FITS files, so a bit of burnout in the centre of bright stars isn't the end of world to deal with in processing. that's a whole new adventure trying to decide whether to bin, and how longfor subs. I actually think the practical limitation of imaging time is a big one too. You really want at least 5 dithered subs for each filter and say 1.5 to 2 times as many Lum subs, so straight away longer sub times can be a challenge if your imaging time or horizons are limited.

[bmitchell82]

I have found the QHY9 preforms well in relation to filling up the wells when calibrated correctly, This image i think only got unto 25k adu though the brightest part of the nebula and only the brightest stars saturated the well, I will endeavour to take a screen shot of the un altered raw fit file for you to have a ponder over.

Im quite spoilt that my back yard is dark skies i pay for it in travel times as im on the train commuting from uni to home for a good 3 hrs a day :( But as you want more and more long exposure mega data images you have to split your imaging time up over days. For the most of it I run on each target for about 3hrs a night and do between 2 and 3 targets per evening, only due to the location of the image. So i try and capture the shot for 3hrs coming unto the meridian, then keep moving back for another 3 hrs. eg, so i don't have to flip and my kit is balanced and calibrated for that part of the sky. At best i only get to about 35-40 degrees from the horizon so horizon isn't that much of a issue.