Yet another NGC253

[Hagar (Doug)]

Just been looking through the hard disk in the Observatory and I found 8X900sec images of Sculptor Galaxy that I hadn't got around to processing yet so I thought I would punish you with another image of this galaxy.

Some of the images were not the best but here is the result anyway.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Hagar

I found 8X900sec images of Sculptor Galaxy that I hadn't got around to processing yet so I thought I would punish you with another image of this galaxy.

OH YES! spank us Doug, spank us!

Any NGC 253 is a good NGC 253

[AlexN]

I like it Doug.. Have you considered taking every NGC253 sub you have and stacking them? Surely you have over 10hrs worth of data? You've got half an hour in one sub hidden away there somewhere dont you? Stack them all up and show us what QHY8+VC200L megadata looks like!

One question, Some of the stars have a slight flare off them to one side (only the brightest 3) is this due to their direction away from the center of frame, or due to a slight miscollimation? I wouldnt think collimation due to the detail in the galaxy, though I've never seen this kind of thing from a VC200L before.

Alex

[Alchemy (Clive)]

plenty detail doug, maybee just pushed a little to hard in the core.
get an earlier less processed version and just mask in a % to the core to bring back some detail there.

cheers clive.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Thanks for the comments Guys.
Mike, Thought it was a bit rude of me having a crack at Centaurus A then I do the same with 253.

Alex, The flare is caused by the IR filter and some slight miss alignment in the imaging train I think. Visually the collimation looks perfect. Something to investigate and repair.

Clive, Good to hear from you again. I will give the core a bit of a wash and see what I end up with but I usually have trouble getting the blend between the two layers correct. There must be an easier way.

[RB (Andrew)]

Looking good Doug !!
As mentioned, just tone the core down slightly.

[Matty P (Matt)]

Nice image Doug, I will never get tired of the Sculpter Galaxy.

I agree with Alex, stack all your subs of NGC 253. That would be great. I'd love to see what the final image looks like.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Hi Guys I took a look at the old data I had of NGC253 and had a bit of a play. 12 hours worth to be exact but found the end result to be less than pleasing. To start with it was shot at so many angles that after stacking I was left with an image which which needed to be trimmed to almost only the galaxy. Along with this problem a lot of the data was taken without any calibration files whatso ever and really became an exercise in dimminished returns. The noise level along with the need to crop, crop, crop left me feeling quite sad for the poor image. So No big long shot of Sculpter this time. Maybe next year.

[AlexN]

Oh well Doug... It was worth a go!