NGC1365 - Great Barred Spiral Galaxy

[Dave882 (David)]

This 'great' barred spiral galaxy is the highlight of the Fornax Galaxy cluster and lies about 56Mly away. Close enough to pick up some lovely detail in the spiral arms and core. Fun fact: the massive black hole in its centre has been measured to be spinning at close to the speed of light!

This is my first dso image for ages and literally had to clean the dust and cobwebs off everything. Captured over 2 nights last week (in the wee hours)- seeing was actually quite decent for most of it. Unfortunately I had about half of my data affected by a pesky Christmas Beetle that decided my corrector plate was a good spot to hang out. Thankfully it didn't affect the main target but I hope you'll forgive me for the clipped background and a bit of cosmetic correction in the star field to salvage the data!

All up, 5hrs integration under moonless, cloudless skies!

150x 120sec subs (no moon)
gain 100
C14 non edge @f7 with the Starizona reducer LF
EQ8 pro
Asi2600mc pro (no filter)
Asi290mm / celestron OAG
ASIAIR pro / APP / PS
Binned (scaled) 50% in APP

Thanks for dropping in!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Dave882

All up, 5hrs integration under moonless, cloudless skies!

Show off!

He he, cool capture there Dave, lovely colours. In these times of meagre pickings, any image is a good image, even one that comes with an, unwanted, Christmas present

Mike

[AdamJL]

haha I love the beetle photo-bombing your image

Really lovely image. Looks like quite a difficult target to shoot!

[Addos (Adam)]

nice shot dave! lovely colours!

[Dave882 (David)]

Thanks guys. Any other time and you’d throw half that data out and finish it next new moon, but…yeah…that’s 2022 for ya

[Startrek (Martin)]

Dave,
Wonderful image
Gee that big scope resolves detail well on tiny dim objects, and only 5 hours with a OSC , Wow !
Aperture ( and focal length) rules even under less than ideal skies
I’m considering upgrading next year to an 8” carbon fibre newt (for Sydney) for a bit more reach

Cheers
Martin

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Nice job Dave - good depth and the colours are spot on IMO. HII regions showing up well too.

It's a bit noisy though and it looks a bit soft - maybe because of the large display scale?

[Dave882 (David)]

Thanks Martin & Marcus. Noise is my enemy in the suburbs shooting broadband osc - big scopes help bring the light in faster, but not always cleaner!

Marcus- I think you're right on all fronts there. The the noise is huge (I think I really need minimum 10hrs to get on top of the LP noise), and as a result I included data that had no right to be there and pushed the PS processing way too hard to compensate. So I actually went back to the original data and re-stacked with 2hrs of decent, non bug data, just raw straight out of APP with background, LP and star colour calibration. Even though it's super noisy, i think I really like the end product so much more. More natural looking and subtle detail. Might get some more data later this year or 2023 to finish the project. Very much appreciate your input

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Dave882

So I actually went back to the original data and re-stacked with 2hrs of decent, non bug data,

Yeah, maaate, that's looking great! I'd be happy with that ...actually looks pretty similar to what I recon my first light mega data 2 minute Lum exposure might have turned into from Eagleview, with a few more subs and I would have been quite happy too. Nice job mate, looks better than your original attempt, detail beats colour IMO

Mike