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Old 24-01-2010, 04:06 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
Highest Observatory in Oz

strongmanmike is offline
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Canberra
Posts: 17,680
Massive Fornax Galaxy Cluster

I have been wanting to image this great field of contrasting galaxies for a while, I had it all planned for 2 or 3 nights during IISAC 2008 but the weather was crap and I didn't even take my scope to Lostock

I would have done it last IISAC but the same thing, unpredictable weather..... I did try and get Humi to image it at IISAC 2009 but bah!...he was too chicken

Well last week saw a couple of great nights of clear steady skies at my dark sky site so I was finally able to grab this sought after field as it was at the meridian on dark and I could image it down into the west (my darkest horizon) during our short summer nights.

It was a challenging field to process in a balanced way, eliptical galaxies are always hard to get right I recon...so I hope you like'em
More exposure would have been good but I am happy with what I got (beggers can't be chosers)

Small full frame image (1meg):
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...28357/original

Large Full frame image - great to swim around in (2meg):
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...28378/original

100% resolution crop of NGC 1365 (600k)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...28384/original

Awsome eliptical galaxies at the heart of the cluster (1meg)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...28848/original

Close up of cute little Saturn Galaxy NGC 1381 (200k)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...28924/original


For those with good broadband who want to see it all in one go at full resolution...here it is (5meg)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...30330/original

Cheers

Mike

Last edited by strongmanmike; 24-01-2010 at 06:26 AM.
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