[Paul Haese]

Originally Posted by rat156

I hope you don't mind, but I stole your image from the larger version and used it with my original as a colour layer, I'll add the images to my thread on NGC 55. I've made a 3 frame video as well to show the difference. I'll drop that on vimeo or youtube. It makes a compelling case for more time spent on the colour for this one for me.

Of course if you do mind, just let me know and I'll remove the images.

Cheers
Stuart

No problem Stuart, I am looking forward to seeing the result.

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

Paul,

Nice to see a good and deep NGC 55, for a change.

For some reason, people seem to make shallow exposures of this galaxy, perhaps for the reason that these are "good enough" to show the boxy/irregular LMC-like central part of the galaxy (which is of notably high surface brightness.)

The outer zone of very blue structure is interesting.....do I see some poorly-defined spiral arms there? Arguably, if this galaxy were deprojected to a face-on orientation, there is just a hint of spiral arms opening in an anticlockwise direction.

Because NGC55 is so near to edge-on in orientation, it is exceedingly difficult to figure out what it would look like if it were in a face-on orientation.

In general, it could be classified as a Magellanic spiral of type Sm, due perhaps to the merest hint of spiral structure and regularity in its structure (as distinct from a bona fide irregular galaxy). But there is not a lot to go on because of the orientation.

cheers, Robert

One does get the sense of significant regular structure in this galaxy, though rather chaotic and entropic; for instance, there is a rough and ready bulge-like structure of older stars surrounded by an annulus of much younger stars.

Thanks Robert for your considered comments. I found one or two images out there in cyber land that sort of hinted at the spiral structure. Some of the commentary suggested it might be a barred spiral, but like you said it is so hard to tell at this angle. Great object to image and one that I will redo again with the RC12 in the future.

Originally Posted by Rigel003

Looks great Paul. Nice star colours and hints of pink in the HII regions. the brighter portion has been dodged well and there's so much detail. The background sky looks a little lumpy - not sure if this is faint stars or a bit of noise still, despite the marathon exposure.

Yeah the sky does look a little lumpy, but I think this is the smoothing I used. I really needed a lot more data in the lum to allow the stretching I wanted to do. There is also a bit of gradient going on, but I think that is caused by a night of high cloud in the mix.

Originally Posted by naskies

Great work, Paul. I think that's some of the best colour I've seen in NGC 55.

Dave the colour was my main focus for this object. Don Goldman's image of this object and Martin Pugh's are key stone reference for me. Both have great colour and fine detail.

Originally Posted by PRejto

Great photo, Paul. I agree about the colour. It's super!!

Peter

PS Obviously your guiding is working perfectly!

Guiding really makes an image. Tight stars lead to good detail showing in an image. Just even slightly eggy stars results in a loss of detail. Good seeing is also needed but if you have tight stars your half way there.