LMC & Eta Carinae WF's

[Benny L (Ben)]

hi all,

i had the opportunity to go and see the skies that grace the weatbelt region of WA a while ago and this is what I have to show for it..

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...131/Eta_WF.jpg

Eta Carinae was total 90mins RGB with a synthetic luminance..

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...131/LMC_WF.jpg

LMC was 2 hours and 05 minutes RGB with a synthetic luminance..


Gear was a SBIG ST-L11000M with a Hasselblad (Zeiss Optics) 80mm f2.8 at f4.0.

To give an idea of how dark the skies were, I was able to easily see Centaurus A with the NAKED EYE!

To top it off it was hand guided too

[gregbradley]

Fantastic resolution and the LMC looks almost solid.

I don't understand the glow area around the LMC. Are those stars or is it vignetting? Did you use flats? My guess is that is vignetting and needed to be flat fielded out. But it may also be a swarm of stars surrounding it that don't normally come out. I have also imaged the LMC with a similar focal length and an STL and I don't recall that swarm.

Lenses tend to vignette heavily with an STL. But you don't seem to have any coma so that is great.

Hand guided - wow, that was hard work.

Greg.

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

WOW, very nice Benny - check out that LMC halo!!!!

Looking forward to Eta season too!!!

Great images
Doug

[Benny L (Ben)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Fantastic resolution and the LMC looks almost solid.

I don't understand the glow area around the LMC. Are those stars or is it vignetting? Did you use flats? My guess is that is vignetting and needed to be flat fielded out. But it may also be a swarm of stars surrounding it that don't normally come out. I have also imaged the LMC with a similar focal length and an STL and I don't recall that swarm.

Lenses tend to vignette heavily with an STL. But you don't seem to have any coma so that is great.

Hand guided - wow, that was hard work.

Greg.

hey Greg, I didn't worry about flats because the lens I was using is designed to give even illumination over a 6x6cm piece of film.. I guess I'll reprocess with some flats to see what happens, but seeing as the Eta widefield was done immediately after the LMC I would have thought that if it was vignetting I would have seen it on that image as well?

I don't understand why its there either, but if it's real data and not vignetting then who am i to complain

[gregbradley]

Yes I thought the same, that if it vignetted why didn't it show in the Eta which shows none.

You never know you may have shown something not revealed in others images before.

Greg.

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

IIS member Antu photographed the LMC from South American dark skies a few months ago and imaged an identical halo, so that might rule out vignetting.
Here is his pic...
http://www.eso.org/~ybialets/lmc_par.jpg
Looks like you raised the bar on the LMC halo Benny!!

[Benny L (Ben)]

I might have to spend some more time on the LMC now lol Antu seems to have a lot more information further away from the lmc itself.. something to work towards i guess..

I like my work to be contrasty so i'd imagine that i sacrifice the really faint information..

[gregbradley]

Well what do you know.

LMC is really an elliptical/spherical galaxy.

The number of stars out there is simply mind blowing.

That makes it an even more awesome image.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I don't know I think you captured it very well.

So what we normally regard as the LMC appears to be merely the core part of an elliptical galaxy. I wonder if this is known in the Scientific community.

Greg.

[Lester]

Outstanding images. There is no comparison to dark skies.

[Garyh]

Very nice Benny! Love that LMC one! Tried getting that outer halo here but so far it`s a no go. I think a real pristine sky is a must.
Well done!

[MrB (Simon)]

Awesome Benny!

Originally Posted by Benny L

To give an idea of how dark the skies were, I was able to easily see Centaurus A with the NAKED EYE!

Heh
I first saw Cent A naked eye at the first Swan Star Party(2003?), was so impressed it has now become my 'yardstick' for dark skies.
I drive out along Brookton highway, stopping just short of Brookton, for my dark skies. From out there the glow of Perth is almost gone, just a slight green light 'dome' in the west.