I am sorry about the long post. but I am very excited about releasing this image as it represents my first real contribution to science. A couple of years ago I was asked to join an international group of astrophysicists and professional astronomers led by Dr. David Martinez-Delgado of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. What is rare about this team is that a few of the team members are amateur astronomers like me. The coordinator of this small team is my good friend R Jay Gabany who does incredible work from his remote observatory in New Mexico. He is the first amateur star stream hunter to be published. Our function is to take deep images of galaxies, looking for the fossil remnants of galaxy cannibalism called star streams.
Thanks for the kind words, you are a wise man - yes Jerry is running one of Jay's images today showing another type of star stream. Jay is at McDonald observatory with David (lead investigator) trying to collect more data for the star stream team but clouds are in the way
I have several more images to post from the survey myself
Truly incredible image Ken. The image looks 3D like I am just viewing this galaxy from a million light years or so and heading into the galaxy. The sharpening is to superb, star colours and colours of the galaxy are excellent. Something to aspire to for sure.
Lovely image. Co incidentally the Newcastle Astronomical society had an excellent talk by Geraint F. Lewis of a similar project called The Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey ,PAndAS where they imaged incredibly faint star streams linking M31 and M33.