The Large Magellanic Cloud distorted barred spiral

[gregbradley]

Another lens widefield image.

This one is 3 hours 10 minutes at F2.8 at my dark site.

I wanted to show the fact that the LMC is a distorted barred spiral and the large sweeping arm at the bottom swings around. You can see some halo above it as well.

LMC widefield, Pentax 67 165mm 2.8, Proline 16803:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/137923433 regular

http://upload.pbase.com/image/137923433 large

Inverted image shows even more the sweeping arm (colour core for orientation),

The Milky Way has distorted this arm. With a bit of imagination some of that arm
appears to be sweeping back towards the Milky Way or towards the viewer that is.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/137936031


Greg.

[CometGuy]

Greg,

What a great image! It definitely shows the structure very clearly. Thanks for posting.

Terry

[gregbradley]

Thanks Terry.

Greg.

[Ross G]

A beautiful widefield photo Greg.

The Pentax lens seems very sharp.

Thanks.

Ross.

[Peter Ward]

Very nice twist to a well known object. Good one :thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

That's a beauty Greg! You've got to love those dark sky sites. Wish I had one.

Cheers

Steve

[alexch]

Excellent image indeed. Very detailed and nicely framed! Thanks for the view.

[Big Dave]

Looks great, a hard object to get looking like that.

[Alchemy]

Seems you have produced the evidence to your statement quite well.

You've even got some dust showing up over the main bar, which I don't particularly remember being aware of previously.

Lots of nice targets for the larger scope enthusiast in there too, a nice reference image.

[gregbradley]

Yes it seems to be quite good. Better overall than the 55mm F4.



Cheers Peter. It is a familiar target. I have seen a few images of it that show that wider spiral arm feature and I wanted to get more of that.



The dark site is great. Just the travel and setup means you have to be assured of a few days of clear weather to make it worthwhile. I've been caught out many times, especially about 2 years ago when it seemed to be endlessly cloudy.



Thanks Alex.

Greg.

[desler]

Yep, that's a ripper, well done Greg.

Darren

[gregbradley]

Thanks Darren.

This little 165mm lens is quite good although it needs a correcting filter I think. There is a bit of chromatic aberration I have to correct in the processing. Mainly though its just the bright stars come out magenta.

Greg.

[Hagar]

Nice one Greg. The centre of the cloud could maybe be toned down a bit to allow the structure in the core area to show through a little more.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Dougie. Yes it is a bit bright.

Greg.

[atalas]

Totally agree Greg...fantastic seeing the LMC's shape...great shot.

[OICURMT]

One of the coolest images I've seen of the LMC... nice job :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Not bad huh? You have certainly pushed it over the top a little, so you have lost some finer details but the result is the sweeping "arm" under the galaxy is visible nicely and coupled with this orientation, does give a less than conventional appearance to the shape of the galaxy - cool :thumbsup:

Mike

[Lester]

Wonderful view Greg. The FOV of the lens frames the LMC and its outer faint structure well. Thanks for the view.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Louie.



Gee thanks. It did turn out more vibrant than I thought it would.



Yes it is pushed but I wanted as you point out to show the shape of it more than anything. You can see the interaction occurring with the Milky Way Galaxy like we see in these other Ken Crawford style images.



Cheers Lester.

Greg.

[Tom Davis]

That is EXCELLENT!! What a great image!

Tom

[gregbradley]

Thanks Tom!

Greg.

[multiweb]

That's one very deep shot. Amazing. :thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Thanks Marc.

It'd be deeper but for some odd reason the computer shut down or software stopped working at 3am instead of 5am. Not sure why either.

Greg.

[renormalised]

Excellent image, Greg:):)

Great work:)

[multiweb]

Just make sure you don't have windows updates set up to automatically download/install then reboot your machine on a schedule. I got caught once. It can be disabled in the CP.

[SkyViking]

That is awesome, it certainly looks like a barred spiral. Thanks for sharing this.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Clive.



Good tip Marc. That's what happened to it last time it did that. I disabled the updates after the first night. They were turned off I think, but perhaps not. Leaves you wondering if you corrected it and the only way to find out is to check it out at 3am!



Thanks. Its an interesting object that will all know well but it has a bit of structure seen in some images that I wanted to pick up.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Nice Greg, it shows the shape nicely and sets it out in the field well. colours look good.

[bloodhound31]

Love it Greg! I find this object generally boring to look at. You have made it interesting! Thanks!

Baz.

[RobF]

My first reaction was it's a bit overcooked, but after reading what you set out to do you have certainly demonstrated the structure nicely Greg. Inspriing stuff and thanks for sharing.

How are you doing the filters. Can you fit a full filterwheel set up in there, or using a drawer?

Rob

[gregbradley]

Thanks Paul. I thought the lens framed it well.



Thanks Baz. I know what you mean. I have imaged the LMC many times and it often comes out disappointing.



Yes it is pushed quite hard. The filter wheel is my standard FLI 5 x 50mm square filter wheel. It has HaLRGB in it and I also swap a few over for O111 S11 sometimes. I plan to get a 7 position filter wheel so I don't have to do that and also so I can image with 2 setups. The filter wheel and camera are controlled using CCDsoft and the various filtered images are programmed as a sequence in that.

Greg.

[Garyh]

Lovely work like always Greg!
FOV is just fantastic!
cheers Gary

[gregbradley]

Thanks Gary.

It was a good matchup of lens size and the camera.

Greg.

[dj gravelrash]

world class--end of story !!!

[gregbradley]

Wow, thank you.

Greg.