NGC1566 revisited

[kinetic]

I snapped a set of this beautiful spiral in Dorado tonight.
Seeing was average . High cloud spoiled an attempt the previous night.
A weird set of extra diffraction rings on the bright stars has me puzzled.
Maybe a spider web in the drawtube...dunno.

My last look at this galaxy was in Oct 2009 here (http://jfbo.webs.com/ngc1655resize_all323_crop_rotate_qm _keller_sharpen_auto.jpg).

[bmitchell82]

Thats a blinder Steve! I love those kind of galaxies their shape and design capture my attention.

On your wierd ass spike, that reminds me of microlensing I get faint 45deg spikes coming off my brighter stars.

[Peter.M]

Interestingly enough I took a photo of this a few months ago, as part of 4 galaxies in the area, and that star shows small signs of the diffraction spikes that you are seeing. Hmm

[strongmanmike]

Well the latest effort is better, so nice job.

Mike

[kinetic]

thanks all,

another from tonight.
The mystery diffraction spike has changed a bit.
Maybe it is a spider/ web in the nosepiece or
within the 4 way filter.:shrug:

Steve

[atalas]

Nice job Steve.

[gregbradley]

Good image Steve.

Those outer arms extend a long way.

Greg.

[kinetic]

Thanks Greg, Louie,

CCDstack does a slightly better job of fine alignment and
deconvolve to my usual method, as shown here.
Curves, again, adjusted purely to show the depth of the set.
Edit: ESO image added for comparison (courtesy Aladin DSS)

Steve

[TrevorW]

Nice effort that Steve must do this one myself

[Paul Haese]

Nice Steve; that is now on the imaging list.

[Stevec35]

That's a pretty good NGC 1566 Steve. This is not a particularly easy galaxy to do well and you have captured the essentials.

Cheers

Steve

[Ross G]

Great galaxy photo Steve.

Nice details.

Ross.

[kinetic]

Thanks Paul, Trev, Steve and Ross,

I think I might have found the culprit to the east-west diffraction
on the brighter stars.
I pulled the DSI/cooler/filter wheel (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=36956) assembly down today to
have a look and found two things it may have been.
First was a smear on the Baader IR, left when doing a final swipe/clean
with iso and a tissue. The smear had very obvious residue streaks in mainly
one direction.
Second was the kevlar belt had come adrift on the filter wheel and
was sitting slightly over the drawtube. Hopefully I can do a set tonight
because Sunday night is looking clear so far.

Steve