The delicate, bluish face-on tightly wound spiral is NGC 5101 in southern Hydra. The edge-on spiral with burnt-orange core threaded with branching dust lanes is NGC 5078. It itself has an evil companion which looks very like the meat-hook galaxy.
There are hundreds of other galaxies near and far in the image, many showing clear spiral structure. There seems to be a very busy cluster of distant orange galaxies about 20% of the way toward 8 o'clock.
Lum: 7hrs in 1hr unbinned subs. RGB: 2.5 hrs each in 30 min unbinned subs.
Aspen CG16M on 20" PlaneWave. GoodLook 64.
We are very grateful that some much needed 40 mm of rain is coming to the thirsty central west (there's not so much feed left in many paddocks), but it means that further hours on this one will have to wait till next new moon.
When I first looked at the high res my first words were wowza! What I like about all of those bright stars is that they ALL LOOK LIKEE THEY'RE EXPLODING!
Now that that is out of my system, it is a lovely imagine. I do particularly like that fainter galaxy cluster, it looks quite redshifted and quite distant!
Wow! What a gorgeous shot. Love those faint galaxies al round the place.
Thanks, Rom. There seems to be some sharp-edged patches of bluish nebulosity that we forgot to mention also.
Quote:
Originally Posted by codemonkey
Beautiful work! Lots of little fuzzies; enjoyed panning around in the full res.
Thanks, Lee. We enjoyed photographing this after 4945 in Centaurus, where it's far harder to find background galaxies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
When I first looked at the high res my first words were wowza! What I like about all of those bright stars is that they ALL LOOK LIKEE THEY'RE EXPLODING!
Now that that is out of my system, it is a lovely imagine. I do particularly like that fainter galaxy cluster, it looks quite redshifted and quite distant!
Cheers, Colin. The exploding stars might be because we pushed the image quite hard. Or perhaps there was some loose spider-web making diffraction spikes. (Really). Hopefully it wasn't because we just washed the main mirror and left scratchy streaks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiraz
Stunning part of the sky. Impressive star colour and essentially perfect processing of the galaxies. Another top image.
Thanks, Ray. Thrilled that you like it.
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Originally Posted by Peter Ward
Great result
Reminds me of....
A fish.....swimming...somewhere.....
Thank you Peter. Perhaps 5101 is benthic and 5078 is pelagic.
MnT, I started this very same paring a couple of years ago now before I went to an AOX for guiding. I had about 10 hours of luminance at the time but never got the chance to get the colour as the camera died on me.
Your composition is 90 degrees to the way I was imaging it, it is different but interesting. Colour saturation looks good but not sure about the colour of 5078. Isn't that supposed to be a yellowy white colour? Smooth and silky finish though is quite pleasurable to see.
Wow so many different types of galaxy in the same spot. The top one looks like a mini SOmbrero should us Aussies christen in the Akubra Galaxy because it is Shouthern?
A great FOV, M&T. Some lovely galaxies, near and far!
Cheers,
Rick.
Thanks, Rick. We puzzled about whether to present the two major galaxies as separate images, as the pair together don't really quite suit the FOV, or whether to make it a mosaic. But the de-militarized zone in the middle proves to be quite fascinating in its own right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
MnT, I started this very same paring a couple of years ago now before I went to an AOX for guiding. I had about 10 hours of luminance at the time but never got the chance to get the colour as the camera died on me.
Your composition is 90 degrees to the way I was imaging it, it is different but interesting. Colour saturation looks good but not sure about the colour of 5078. Isn't that supposed to be a yellowy white colour? Smooth and silky finish though is quite pleasurable to see.
Cheers, Paul. That's kind. Sad about your camera.
We expected the centre of 5078 to be more of an orange-yellow, based on Martin Pugh's APOD and also an old David Malin AAO shot. Our colour processing plan is:
- Set provisional zero point to the foothill of the histogram on each channel.
- Lightly wavelet noise filter.
- Low-order background gradient removal. Fine checkerboard placed over image. Squares occupied by striking features deleted. Then use multiple linear regression on square-by-square median to remove gradient.
- Repeat zero point
- Arcsinh curve with slope of about 10 at origin
- Set image as a whole to be colour neutral (ie average colour is grey)
- Increase saturation till looks about right
- Repeat zero point, colour neutral balance, and final arcsinh curve.
So the idea is to produce an image that shows relative, rather than absolute colours. (Not suitable for RGB on nebulas, but we don't do those).
Perhaps if we do new flats (overdue for RGB), and do some additional panels more centered over the main galaxies, the colour will look more as expected, but on religious grounds we don't try hand-tweaking to produce a particular colour effect. More data can only help.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevec35
What a great field! I love what you guys do. Totally endorse your comments about the rain but lets hope it doesn't stay around for too long.
Steve
Thanks muchly Steve. Hope you guys get some brief soaking rain too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by plantnerd
Wow so many different types of galaxy in the same spot. The top one looks like a mini SOmbrero should us Aussies christen in the Akubra Galaxy because it is Shouthern?
Hi, Luis,
Akubra it is. There's a lot of southern constellations that need disassembling into smaller units for southern viewers. We call Chamaeleon "the Kite", and Apus (plus a bit of Octans) "The Mouse". Instantly recognizable.
I wrongly wrote 5078 was an edge-on spiral (we were thinking of 5128, an elliptical engulfing a spiral, and calling it not the Hamburger but the Hot Dog) but it is in fact a lenticular galaxy. I don't have much of a feel for the astrophysics of those.
Another great image to surf and the distant yellow galaxies are great features...I see a faint diffuse patch of something just left of centre...what do you recon that is?
What a beautiful galaxy field, and the two main actors are nicely contrasting. Good call to present them together I reckon.
I too see some faint wispy clouds in the left half of the image.
wow cool capture M&T,
I like how you manage to squeeze these galaxies into the frame. great field.
russ
Cheers, Russ! Took a couple test shots as my NGC catalogue had a seriously wrong size for 5078. Never trust anything!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
Crikey!
I counted over 70 galaxies without even trying!
That's an astounding image - nothing wrong with your NB images but you guys should really do more of this amazing LRGB galaxy stuff, it's incredible
Very well done M&T
Wow, thanks, Andy. Will do as commanded. All we need is for that bad ole yellow moon to go away at the same time as the clouds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Love it!
Great composition!
Thanks,
Tim
Thanks, Tim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Yeah I agree with Andy
Another great image to surf and the distant yellow galaxies are great features...I see a faint diffuse patch of something just left of centre...what do you recon that is?
Nice work
Mike
Thanks, Mike. Regarding the nebulosity, we had a close look at Martin Pugh's APOD. Needed to mirror-image and rotate, to match the images, but then you can see it answers pretty nearly. Trish points out that in ours, the right hand edge seems quite sharply defined.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SkyViking
What a beautiful galaxy field, and the two main actors are nicely contrasting. Good call to present them together I reckon.
I too see some faint wispy clouds in the left half of the image.
Thank you Rolf. Nice to hear from you. I'm never quite sure what Galactic Cirrus is, but it's a candidate.
Love those faint galaxies al round the place.
