NGC253 - Sculptor Galaxy

[joshman (Josh)]

Wanted to stretch the legs on the processing front a little bit, and decided to see what kind of resolution I can really squeeze out of the Takahashi FSQ106.

25 hours of HaO3LRGB data on the Sculptor Galaxy. I chose this for a few reasons, I hadn't shot it before, Galaxy processing is still a mystery to me, and it was well positioned for my location, passing very high overhead. I went all out on the filters with this one, but I still need to learn better processing techniques to properly blend the Ha and O3 data into the LRGB stack.

Click here to see it on Astrobin!


Thanks for looking and Clear Skies!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by joshman

Wanted to see what kind of resolution I can really squeeze out of the Takahashi FSQ106.

Huh! Not bad, not bad at all

Six filters huh?...quite the project and yes challenging, not many galaxies are good subjects for really showing much OIII. Really only shows in our close dwarfs and face on spirals in our local group, like the dwarfs in Sagittarius, M33, NGC 300 and a couple of others. Doesn't mean it's not there just not concentrated away from the Ha enough, to delineate I think, The Ha in the same areas over powers it..? My recent M83 had some good signal in the OIII stack (I collected over 3hrs worth) but it was fairly diffusely distributed, all lined up with the Ha I guess so can't really tell in the final image, perhaps just an alteration towards a teal hue in the inner 50% of the galaxy..? Maybe why your final result is looking quite blue across the board too..?

Again, great project well done

Mike

[Dave882 (David)]

yikes that's really nice detail for a relatively short-fl setup. Damn those taks are sharp. Nice work

[Startrek (Martin)]

Josh,
Excellent image of Caroline’s galaxy
Aperture is no limitation here
Beautifully processed too
Well done !!

Martin

[joshman (Josh)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Huh! Not bad, not bad at all

Six filters huh?...quite the project and yes challenging, not many galaxies are good subjects for really showing much OIII. Really only shows in our close dwarfs and face on spirals in our local group, like the dwarfs in Sagittarius, M33, NGC 300 and a couple of others. Doesn't mean it's not there just not concentrated away from the Ha enough, to delineate I think, The Ha in the same areas over powers it..? My recent M83 had some good signal in the OIII stack (I collected over 3hrs worth) but it was fairly diffusely distributed, all lined up with the Ha I guess so can't really tell in the final image, perhaps just an alteration towards a teal hue in the inner 50% of the galaxy..? Maybe why your final result is looking quite blue across the board too..?

Again, great project well done

Mike

Thanks Mike! from memory you're pretty spot on with the distribution of the O3 in this one. It's definitely present and mostly diffuse, and lends a nice amount of blue to the arms, but it's overpowered and out-shone by the Ha.



I may also have my blue saturation turned up a bit too high...

Originally Posted by Dave882

yikes that's really nice detail for a relatively short-fl setup. Damn those taks are sharp. Nice work

Thanks Dave!, I'm constantly surprised at how sharp the Tak can be when the skies are stable. I think I really lucked into some good weather when I was capturing this one.

Originally Posted by Startrek

Josh,
Excellent image of Caroline’s galaxy
Aperture is no limitation here
Beautifully processed too
Well done !!

Martin

Thanks Martin! I'd not heard it referred to as Caroline's Galaxy before. A fitting reward for one of the great astronomers!