Markarian's Chain

[andyc (Andy)]

A rare trip to a dark sky, and I had a crack at the centre of the Virgo Cluster. I was hoping to squeeze M87 in, but for the sake of framing the shot a tiny bit better, I concentrated on the area around M86 and succeeded in not quite entirely missing M87 . See if you can spot the little trail left by 15th mag asteroid 484 Pittsburghia just north of M84. It was almost, but not quite processed out, but I left the remains in as a curiosity - it tested my ability to check for unknown objects.

Just under 2 hours of 5-minute exposures, EOS60D, ISO800, 150mm f/5 Newtonian on HEQ5pro, guided with Orion mini autoguider, processed in PI and PS2. Possibly still just a fraction blue for the background!

A larger view is here.

A larger wider view is here.

[astronobob (Bob)]

Sweet shootin and framing - grouse result, I gotta do this area one these days, , /nights - an inspiring image

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Nice work Andy, just remove that gradient (any gradient removal function should work ok), it looks like a strong gradient really so what dark sky were you under?

Mike

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Well done, Andy. Not just the main fellows, but all the little ones.

[andyc (Andy)]

Thanks everyone!

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Nice work Andy, just remove that gradient (any gradient removal function should work ok), it looks like a strong gradient really so what dark sky were you under?

Mike

Mike, this is the version with the gradient (badly) removed . A group of friends and I were getting drunk in the kitchen of the place we were all staying Between Orange and Bathurst over the long weekend, and of course with beautiful planning, the scope tracked over in that direction during the few hours I was imaging, and surely caught the fairly strong stray light from the window. So poor planning, and nothing at all to do with getting a bit tipsy myself .

I've not quite been satisfied with the DBE results so far - removal of the DBE background seems to lead to a much noisier 'floor' to my images that spoils faint details. Possibly because my images are noisier to start with, as the gradient removed is very smooth, so I probably need to produce less noisy image stacks...

[gregbradley]

Nice shot Andy. Its nice to be under dark skies eh?

Greg.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Cool field Andy. Very nice indeed.