As promised, some more galaxies in Ara... and these two small galaxies NGC 6221 and NGC 6215 hang majestically in the yellow-red glow of the giant K class star Eta Arae.
The dimensions of the bulk of these two galaxies are NGC 6221: 2.7' X 2' and NGC 6215: 1.5' X 1.3' however the image has revealed that both have faint extended halos that increase their sizes out to 5' X 3' and 2' X 2' respectively. NGC 6221 especially looks strange as there is what appears to be a clear spiral arm distortion/elongation (like it has been pulled out by something?) to the lower left but no obvious nearby galaxies that could be blamed..?
At 300 light years away, here is a bit about the star Eta Arae, this is from Wiki: The spectrum of this star matches a stellar classification of K5 III, indicating that, at an estimated age of seven billion years, it has reached the giant star stage of its evolution. With a mass nearly the same as the Sun, it has an outer envelope that has expanded to nearly 56 times the Sun's radius. The star is now spinning so slowly that it takes more than eleven years to complete a single rotation. Eta Arae is radiating energy into space at an effective temperature of 3,886 K, giving it the orange-hued glow of a K-type star. It has a 14th magnitude optical companion, located 25.7 arc seconds away.
This was another easy process, no darks, no gradient removal and no noise reduction were used and as has been the case for the 6 years of using this scope now, even at mag 3.7 and at the edge of the field, Eta Arae caused no spurious reflections or halos to deal with. This is a testament to the design of the fast Wynn corrector lens in this scope as well as the Astronomik Deep Sky filters and I did no special work on the star either, this is how it came out after my normal processing run I did have a bit of fog around (which cut my night short) so that has probably accentuated the glow around the star a little? (which I don't mind the look of)....easy imaging...I like that
The seeing wasn't great for this image varying a bit over the single night of collection, with mostly below average conditions for my site, with occasional improved periods...gotta take the good with the bad I guess
And Allan, your DSLR shot isn't bad either. I thought this might be too hard a shot for me but now I might just tip toe over to Mike's finderscope..... Sshhhh, don't tell him.
and yours is pretty good too, just needs flats? and maybe a bit of gradient work, that's all
Mike
Thanks Mike,
you make me want to try & re-process it.
I know a lot more now - I was only a beginner then.
At least you've shown what can be done with a big Newt. &
a CCD camera from a darker location.
Thanks Mike,
you make me want to try & re-process it.
I know a lot more now - I was only a beginner then.
At least you've shown what can be done with a big Newt. &
a CCD camera from a darker location.
Another ripper Mike. I'm most impressed with the lack of internal reflections--something that often bugs me.
Geoff
Cheers Geoff, yes two things I have never had any issues with using this scope over the past 6 years are internal reflections/halos and finding a guide star, ie after framing the object there is always a suitable (off axis) guide star or two (or more), to chose from within 2 - 3 sec guide exposures without having to re frame
Two interesting galaxies, well photographed. The lack of internal reflections is very helpful. Counted six faint fuzzies in the great distance despite being very close to the Milky Way.
Two interesting galaxies, well photographed. The lack of internal reflections is very helpful. Counted six faint fuzzies in the great distance despite being very close to the Milky Way.
I did have a bit of fog around (which cut my night short) so that has probably accentuated the glow around the star a little? (which I don't mind the look of)....easy imaging...I like that 
...was it the star or the galaxies..?
