Fornax Dwarf with Interstellar medium

[montewilson (Monte)]

Hi Guys - It's been a while between drinks but here is something I am confident you wont have seen much of before if at all.

It is a shot I did a couple of months ago of the Fornax Dwarf. I think it was 4x15mins with no filter (FSQ + STL11000m).

The galaxy is well defined but what it really interesting is the way the interstellar medium is quite obvious. This faint dust is all through the sky and with the new generation of cooled CCD cameras and fast refractors you can image something that has in many cases never been imaged before.

I will be doing a much longer series of this galaxy to see how much of this dust there is.

I am not sure if it is a reflection nebula or emmission or both but it doesn't show up well in filtered images.

[spearo (Frank)]

nice shot
will be good to see your next go at it
cheers
frank

[Dennis]

Nice work Monte. I enjoyed looking at the image and reading your notes. How will your deeper images be affected by general sky glow, even from your dark location?

Cheers

Dennis

[montewilson (Monte)]

Hi Dennis - Good question, I'm not sure but as I am already getting a good s/n ratio at 15 mins, adding subs at this exposure should only improve the image. Were I to try a 30 or 60 min shot I might not be so lucky. I might try it one night out of curiousity.

[gbeal]

Nice Monte, I too would be keen to see how deep/long you can go. I am normally shooting 10 minutes subs, but occasionally shoot 30 minutes with no real problem. Try it.

[Ric]

Great looking image Monte, it will be interesting to see deeper images and the extent of the dust.

Cheers

[Garyh]

Good to see you back Monte.
Actually have never seen a pic of this dwarf galaxy before so a great effort there Have noticed it on charts etc now I know what it looks like. Wonder is my canon would pick this faint fuzzy up? Have to give it a go!
Nice one!!
cheers

[montewilson (Monte)]

Hi Gary - You should be able to image it under a dark sky without much difficulty. I am told it can be seen with a 4" scope with a wide field eyepiece so I can't see why a DSLR can't record it. Contrast is the key here not power. Have a stab at it, you can use this photo as a finder chart.

[glenc (Glen)]

I have seen it with 20x80 binoculars and with my 12" at low power.

[iceman (Mike)]

Lovely image Monte, very interest subject indeed.

[Lee]

That's cool.... what image scale is it? full frame?

[montewilson (Monte)]

Yes - its full frame. The field is about 2 x 3.5
deg

[Alchemy (Clive)]

youve got me there, not one i recall seeing, would love to see it in colour-narrowband or rgb

[tornado33]

Gee thats a nice deep shot. So you were not using an IR cut filter either?
Scott

[montewilson (Monte)]

I think the clear filter is still an IR reduction filter. I will check none the less.

[jase (Jason)]

Lovely work Monte... 'bout time too mate. You've been rather quite.
Hope to see more of your imaging adventures soon. Perhaps add some chrominance when the moon dissipates.

[montewilson (Monte)]

Hi Jase - Yes I have been a bit quiet. I have however been taking images and training with TPoint and Automapper. I am not in a hurry to do much colour at the moment. I am not completely happy with my image processing and noise control just yet. Also I am starting to think my camera may be having some noise problems. We'll see.