NGC 300 - LL HaRGB

[John Hothersall]

SPX350 F4.5, ATK-16HR, Astrodon filters Ha5nm. LL HaRGB

This is one of the closest galaxies to the Milkyway at 6.1 mlyrs away and about 45,000lyrs diameter. It proved to be very faint and so cannot be imaged with a Moon present and colour was so dim I decided to binx2 along with Ha which provided a lot of noise in the final image that had to be deal with partially with a double luminance.

With Richardo's sensational widefield image you can see just how big this galaxy actually is and was bigger than I thought (bigger sensor needed I think) so a faint spiral arm is cut off at the top. This galaxy has large HII regions throughout which binning does not seem to have affected too much as well as large blue star clouds. Part of the luminance was taken in good seeing.

L=3hrs 20mins Binx1
Ha=12x5m Binx2
RGB=6x5m Binx2.

Thanks for looking.

[RickS]

Lovely image and great Ha blending! It compares very favourably with the 2002 APOD picture from the ESO.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Ross G]

A great photo John. I love galaxy photos.

So much detail and I like the contrasting reds.

Thanks.

Ross.

[RobF]

Great stuff for sure John.
Please keep 'em coming :)

[Hagar]

Nice image John, I like the break down of the Ha areas. It is a big dim galaxy which needs lots of exposure to do it justice.

[gregbradley]

A good image John.

Its a weird galaxy with a vague form just like M33.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Nice work John

Ha brought out some nice bits here and there too.

Like the crops, you need a web site :thumbsup:

Mike

[sjastro]

John,

I think you need a website as well.

Incidentally the HII regions come up nicely through using a bit of "pseudo Ha" processing.

http://users.westconnect.com.au/~sjastro/ngc300nc.html

Regards

Steven

[marco]

Nice blending of the Ha John, however I find the image of the galaxy and the starts in the field quite monochrome, I believe there must be some more colors there than blue :)

Marco

[atalas]

Nice work John.

[John Hothersall]

Thanks for the comments, may have another go next year with proper colour to help those poor stars which I admit were not my concern with this image. Did think I might have overdone the blue enhancement perhaps.

Steven your ngc300 is very good as it is such a faint galaxy that needs stretching a lot. Pseudo Ha sounds interesting.

John.

[richardo]

Hi John, great work with getting the result you have, especially if the moon was hampering your rgb run.
I love the Ha blend you've got and this was exactly what I was after....
2xs binning is the only way with the colour and Ha as it's way dim for sure.

Getting any resolution to those mega tiny stars that populate and make up the majority of the arm structure would need super dark skies and a hell of a lot more data than we have gone for.. possibly a larger aperture as well!
Haven't seen any one yet with 20+ hours on it and I think this is what it would really need.

Not the most dynamic object that's for sure but it's fun trying!

And yes we can always add to what we have already next year!

All the best
Rich

[John Hothersall]

Thanks Richardo, knew this image would not be the best with the binning and all but star clouds and Ha do start to show detail even at low res. Colour needs to start at 20min subs unbinned and 20min luminance, a better sensor like the ST10 but those bright stars will bloom somewhat. Like you say next year we can add more, ngc300 is tricky

Regards, John.

[jase]

Excellent John. An amazing quantity of HII regions on display. They sure do add an extra dimension to what is a great image. I do however thing they are a little too bold for the surrounding image. Perhaps backing them off a little will restore a balance. Overall, this is some great imaging. Well done.