Galaxy NGC3521 18.15 hours

[gregbradley]

I actually took closer to 50 hours of this one as part of my new program of imaging doing very long exposures as my normal thing.

2 hard disk failures, a reflection problem that wasn't there last time I used my scope (it took a while to get to the bottom of it) and the usual losses to cloud etc took a toll.

I ended up with 18.15 hours of usable high quality data. Some of the seeing though was sensational and I was amazed at the downloads.

I also started using 15 minute subs after tweaking the PME mount.

This galaxy has a large distorted star halo around it. It appears to be distorted by either another smaller orbiting galaxy or perhaps its merged with another smaller galaxy at some point in the past.

I was pleased to be able to capture the extended halo of stars.

CDK17, Proline 16803, MMOAG, PME:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/143843538/large regular size

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/143843538/original large size

Greg.

[Stevec35]

That's a beauty Greg. One of your very best I would think. I thought I was looking at a R Jay Gabany image for a moment.

Cheers

Steve

[Dr. Washington]

Amazing detail in the lanes of the galaxy, beautiful photo.

[DJT]

That's a fantastic image..love the detail

[Paul Haese]

Very nice Greg. Heaps of detail with a plethora of smaller galaxies in the back ground.

[Jeffkop]

Awesome Greg ... Amazing starfield that is flat to the edges too ... Some handy processing as well ... It looks like a very faint target ... So even 18 hours still adds up to good processing ability required even though I know you said you had some rediculously good seeing.

[allan gould]

Looks like you have captured a number of globular clusters surrounding this galaxy as well as the haze of stars above the plane of the galaxy. Beautiful.
But whats giving the unusual spike (diffraction?) on bright stars?

[Tandum]

That's a terrific image greg, I like it :thumbsup:

[RickS]

Great image and well worth all those hours you put into it, Greg!

[alan meehan]

Amazing image Greg such a spectacular galaxy,well done
AL

[Tom Davis]

Very beautiful, Greg!!

-Tom

[Ross G]

WOW!

What an amazing galaxy photo.

I agree with the others Greg, this is one your best photos.

Thanks for the view.

Ross.

[CapturingTheNight]

:jawdrop: Wow. Fantastic shot Greg. Congratulations on the capture.

[strongmanmike]

Wow 2 days of imaging huh? :eyepop: :prey2:...ooooh I can't wait to have an observatory again.....

Is that swirling gas above the galaxy something that is not usually seen?

Did you need to use noise reduction at all?

Yeh, I see a touch of the Gabany look too :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

High praise - wow, thanks Steve.



I was very happy with the detail the scope was picking up. Part of that is the good seeing I was having.



Thanks for that. A surprising amount of detail did come out.



Cheers Paul. The 17 does pick up those little background galaxies very well.Too bad its so large and heavy or I'd take it to my dark site observatory for an imaging run.



Cheers Jeff. It does go through quite an amazing transformation to get to the final image. I spent about a week on the processing and various versions until I got to the point where I thought - thats it, its not going to improve from here.



CDK has secondary vanes. Funnily enough it tends not to give diffraction spikes unless the stars are quite bright. Also the Proline tends to give a little diagonal spike on some stars. My Microline doesn't so that only the Proline. Some little quirk there.



Thanks Alan. I've always liked this galaxy and its an unsual looking one with not many deep exposure examples around.



Cheers Tom! It is a striking galaxy.


Thanks Greg! It was a lot of work but I am happy with the final result.



2 days? Naah more like 2-3 months. The observatory of course makes it possible. I'd simply set it up, frame it, click start and close everything up next morning. Minimal noise reduction, I am not a big fan of that either and is another reason why I want to do mega exposure imaging so the signal is strong enough to take the processing without too much noise.

I have another galaxy image that is 27 hours from about 35 hours worth which was a better survival rate of data.

Greg

[Gem]

Nice! Good to see some less imaged objects being imaged too. Keep it up! :)

[gregbradley]

Thanks Grant! I am always on the lookout for new and interesting objects to image. It amazes me how there are always new ones being imaged on a regular basis. There is a lot of stuff out there.

Greg.

[multiweb]

Ha Yesss! Very cool Greg. Lovely result. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

Cheers Marc. I certainly put in the hard yards on this one. It represents a lot of work.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies]

That's a fantastic image Greg!!! Well done!!!!

18 hours with a 17" will always do the trick!!

Cheers, Marcus

[Alchemy]

Hot stuff, remarkable amount of detail.

[phobos]

beautiful image! :thumbsup:

[CoolhandJo]

Absolutely wonderful!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Marcus. It certainly can collect a lot of photons in that time.
I just have to give it a stern talking to every now and then when the black baffle paint flakes off and I get new mysterious reflection arcs in my images@!!



Thanks. I was happy to get so much detail. There were a number of nights with much better than average seeing.



Thank you!



Thanks for that.

Greg.

[RobF]

Very impressive work Greg. Some fascinating arm structure visible in there as well as a plethora of faint background fuzzies. Just reward for hard yards.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Rob.

I want to do the best I can do on each object so after a few years at it I will have a catalogue of the best shots I can achieve. I think that takes staying on one object for a while.

Greg.

[atalas]

Galaxy in a bubble....awesome Greg!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Louie.

I like these unusual galaxies.

Greg.

[alpal]

I missed this one - must have been busy on Monday.

What a great picture.
I think it's better than this Gendler one taken with a 32" RC:
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC3521JM.html

It's certainly a much wider field & the colours really stand out.

[gregbradley]

Thanks for the nice compliment.

I always liked this galaxy. I was also very pleased that I caught a period of excellent seeing when I got most of this data.

Greg.

[beren]

:thumbsup: Galaxy images are my favorite and this one is a beauty Greg, congrats indeed on this fine image and the effort involved.

[spacezebra]

Greg - this is a stunning capture!

Cheers Petra d.

[Bassnut]

What a cracker. A bit less processing and say 250hrs would do the trick though.

[Forgey]

Thats beautiful Greg, well done!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Beren. I like galaxy images as well.



Thanks Petra!



hehe. I did at least 50 hours on this one and 2 hard disk failures and the sudden appearance of arc reflections in the images I never had before caused a loss of about 30 hours of images! Imagine 250 hours on an object. That would be cool.



Thanks for that. It is one of the prettier southern galaxies and it reminds me a bit of M63 the Sunflower Galaxy which I would love to image.

Greg.