NGC 5128 Centaurus A Galaxy during a Heat Wave

[Startrek (Martin)]

I was stupid enough 2 weeks ago to have an go at imaging during that horrible Sydney heat wave where temperatures at night were pushing close to 30deg C together with high humidity. Hey it was a clear night , bloody hot but clear
Conditions were very poor to say the least , Star Scintillating like crazy and my camera struggled to get up to -9C , ended up around -8.5C ( I usually have no issue cooling to -10C with plenty of power spare )
Anyway captured only 2 hours of data on NGC 5128 , a Galaxy I haven’t imaged in Sydney for over 2 years.
Broadband targets like galaxy’s under Sydney’s heavy LP ( Bortle 7 to 8 ) is a real struggle , not impossible but you just need hours and hours and hours of data to expose some fine detail plus mitigate the gradients.

My little trusty $200 6” f6 Newt
EQ6-R pro mount
ZWO2600MC camera
No filters ( only the internal UV/ IR Cut protective window of the 2600MC )
122 x 60 sec subs dithered
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.70 to 0.80 arc sec total ) poor
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools v1.8

Link to Astrobin

https://www.astrobin.com/x2kr1x/

Anyway massaged some sort of image out of the small amount of noisy data

Native frame version
Crop version

Comments welcome
Thanks

[Dave882 (David)]

Another great image Martin! Gosh you're getting some mileage out of that 6"!!

I've also been having some dramas getting cooling all the way to -10. One of the things I've noticed with my asi2600mc is that if the cooling maxes out at 100% I get terrible hot pixels appearing everywhere (worse noise than if the cooler was off). They then promptly disappear once I set the cooler to say -5 but I've been caught out a few times and lost a stack of data. The heat haze and currents of our urban environments can be really bad too. You've done well to get this image under such difficult conditions

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Cen A season is upon us! Cool what can be salvaged sometimes out of seemingly pretty bad data

Mike

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thanks Dave,
I’m retiring the 6” soon after 6 years ( when my 8” f5 Carbon fibre finally arrives )
More reach , more aperture , faster optics , rigid / strong and light weight plus it will be my first Mono / OSC rig

Cheers
Martin

[Startrek (Martin)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Cen A season is upon us! Cool what can be salvaged sometimes out of seemingly pretty bad data

Mike

Thanks Mike,
Love imaging those galaxies , preferably down south at my Obs in much darker skies

Cheers
Martin