FLI PL16803 - A window on the Universe M104

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Well due to every concievable excuse....it's been a couple of months but when it rains it pours

This is the first of three data sets I collected last week with the new FLI ProLine 16803. What a camera, it is fast and operates flawlessly and smoothly just as the previous PL11002 did .

This image encompases a huge 1.6deg X 1.6deg field around the famous Sombrero Galaxy.

The seeing wasn't very good but at an image scale of 1.4"/pixel there are many hundreds of tiny background galaxies visible and if you pan around the full size full res version you can see at least three distant galaxy clusters.

The following link takes you to a gallery of images made from the same data set, each image in the album zooms in further on the main prize.

Make sure you click on "Original" in the sizes menu at the bottom of each image page to see the largest file size

Take your time amongst the images and enjoy, my personal favourite is the flying saucer version...while the super close up postage stamp is especially for Fred

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/m104

[Grahame (Grahame)]

Nice one mike! Simply stunning FOV there

Grahame.

[JD2439975 (Justin)]

Holy Mega-pixel Madness Batman!!
That's a lovely big field & so very full of galaxies, noice one mate.
Looks like three large clusters down the bottom of frame alright with loads more sprinkled around for good luck, all that from 5 hours worth...do we have an envious drool smiley?

You know Mike you should really go deep on Abell 1689 & do a supercluster some justice...hint, hint.

A couple of galaxies trying to hide behind a star in the top right corner caught my eye, seems one of them goes by the name of 6dFGS gJ123539.4-110402...just rolls off the tongue, very romantic.

Oh yeah & M104 looks pretty good too.
Here's hoping for some better seeing conditions for you.

[MrB (Simon)]

Wow, are I jealous much? you betchya! Nice shot, nice cam!

This isn't criticism.. I'm not qualified... I notice there is a blue halo around M104, looks like noise but is that a processing artefact or is it normal? Swarm of young globulars etc?

[bratislav (Bratislav)]

Some lateral chromatic aberration starts to show at this chip size ? Is this AP flattener ?
Great pic BTW. Large frame AND high resolution. Can't beat the combination.

Bratislav

PS love the off centre composition.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Thats certainly a huge field there Mike, with lots to look at. The close up is a bit noisy but the exposure time is not that long either.

I think with a bit more exposure time, youd see a lot more galaxies pop up clearly. A good start with the new cam, bodes well, must have been a beitch to get aligned etc.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Big is the operative word here. I cannot get over the high res image but more so the detail/ fine detail in the crop of M104 on it's own. You definitely pull the most out of your images.
Great stuff.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by JD2439975

Holy Mega-pixel Madness Batman!!
That's a lovely big field & so very full of galaxies, noice one mate.
Looks like three large clusters down the bottom of frame alright with loads more sprinkled around for good luck, all that from 5 hours worth...do we have an envious drool smiley?

You know Mike you should really go deep on Abell 1689 & do a supercluster some justice...hint, hint.

A couple of galaxies trying to hide behind a star in the top right corner caught my eye, seems one of them goes by the name of 6dFGS gJ123539.4-110402...just rolls off the tongue, very romantic.

Oh yeah & M104 looks pretty good too.
Here's hoping for some better seeing conditions for you.

Yeah Justin I love images that you can go find stuff in glad you had a surf around, always makes me go ooey and gooey seeing so many galaxies in the distance .

I did the Centaurus Galaxy Cluster for my last and first image with this new camera actually. The seeing at my dark site is rarely very good though so going for small galaxies can be a little disapointing, I have 1.4"/pix resolution available with this setup but if the seeing is only 3-4 arc sec...weeellllll I was pretty happy with the level of detail I was able to extract in M104 in the end but the techniques used here were useless for use on the rest of the image.

Mike

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by MrB

Wow, are I jealous much? you betchya! Nice shot, nice cam!

This isn't criticism.. I'm not qualified... I notice there is a blue halo around M104, looks like noise but is that a processing artefact or is it normal? Swarm of young globulars etc?

Aaaah yes...the blue halo .... is a product of processing at night in a darkened room, the brightness of the screen overwhelms subtle colour casts and in this case in more daylight or normal room lighting the screen brightness is subdued so the colour cast is more obvious. I like a very slight blue cast to a sky but in this case a little toning down may be in order, cheers....a swarm of young globulars (do they exist?) sounds good though

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by bratislav

Some lateral chromatic aberration starts to show at this chip size ? Is this AP flattener ?
Great pic BTW. Large frame AND high resolution. Can't beat the combination.

Bratislav

PS love the off centre composition.

Hi'ya Brat!

No Chromatic abberation...what sacriledge this is an AP my man and a small chip as far as the design of the AP 4" FF specs go

What you are noticing, particularly in a couple of the corners, is a tad of colour frame missalignment which, yes, is more difficult to deal with at this chip/field size...I didn't notice it until well into the processing and by then was not interested in going back and tweeking the sub alignment registration...cause it was late and I am a little lazy ...just ignore it

I agree, 1300mm FL with 9 micron pixels is pretty well ideal I recon?

Mike

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Thats certainly a huge field there Mike, with lots to look at. The close up is a bit noisy but the exposure time is not that long either.

I think with a bit more exposure time, youd see a lot more galaxies pop up clearly. A good start with the new cam, bodes well, must have been a beitch to get aligned etc.

Yes as usual I pushed every bit out of the relatively small amount of data that I could and also as usual ran the guantlete of acceptable noise, I prefer a little noise to an artificially smoothed look...as you well know . Processing for both wide field AND narrow field from the same data is deffinitely challenging, I should do it more seperately but I kinda like to know that everything is in there in both the full wide field AND the up close shots

The seeing was the Achilles heal here, small galaxies get blured and dimmed significntly, applying sharpening to such areas of an image only serves to ruin them further. When the seeing is good it is like chaulk and cheese, as Marcus discovered in his Leo tripplet image.

I have only had it out four nights so far but the camera has been an absolute joy to use and configure just like the PL11002 was

Mike

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Hagar

Big is the operative word here. I cannot get over the high res image but more so the detail/ fine detail in the crop of M104 on it's own. You definitely pull the most out of your images.
Great stuff.

Cheers Doug, it is deffinitely a challenge pushing a 6" as far as one can

Mike

[erick (Eric)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

...my personal favourite is the flying saucer version...

Cool, a galaxy with its own "pointers"! Jaws rule! Nice framing, Mike

[TrevorW]

Nice FOV, plenty detail, good colour, shame about the flaring on the stars.

[bratislav (Bratislav)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Hi'ya Brat!

No Chromatic abberation...what sacriledge this is an AP my man and a small chip as far as the design of the AP 4" FF specs go

What you are noticing, particularly in a couple of the corners, is a tad of colour frame missalignment which, yes, is more difficult to deal with at this chip/field size...I didn't notice it until well into the processing and by then was not interested in going back and tweeking the sub alignment registration...cause it was late and I am a little lazy ...just ignore it

I agree, 1300mm FL with 9 micron pixels is pretty well ideal I recon?

Mike

That's why I was asking!
I thought about misalignment, but then noticed that red 'edge' always points towards the center. That is classic lateral CA. If it was misalignment, red flare would be always on the same side, regardless of position in the frame.
4" FF may be, but it could have been designed with 25 micron film resolution in mind, not giant small pixel CCD chips.

OK I'll ignore it You can't see it unless image is about meter wide anyway.

Bratislav

[Paul Haese]

Lovely example of this galaxy. Perfect guiding and excellent colour. However I just find this sort of thing a waste of real estate. Just my personal opinion here but I really never found the fascination of having millions of faint fuzzies in an image where the subject is being over whelmed by the huge expanse and the only thing to see is well faint smudges. This is not an indictment on the image itself. It is superb in so many ways.

I do like the galaxy and certainly better than anything I have tried before or likely to get in the near future. Nice Work Mike.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

I just find this sort of thing a waste of real estate. Just my personal opinion here but I really never found the fascination of having millions of faint fuzzies in an image where the subject is being over whelmed by the huge expanse and the only thing to see is well faint smudges.

I guess it's like this: I want to image a galaxy -> chip is huge hmmm? -> may as well frame it in an interesting way to encompas some other interesting things = multiple images all in one aaaand an image of the galaxy, just as if I had used a much smaller CCD . Of course the chip will come into its own on more extended objects (psst...a couple in the pipeline ). Besides, know many galaxies that would not look small in a 1.6deg X 1.6deg FOV? he he he...

This is not an indictment on the image itself. It is superb in so many ways.

I do like the galaxy and certainly better than anything I have tried before or likely to get in the near future. Nice Work Mike.

Glad you liked it Paulie

[renormalised (Carl)]

Very nice shots of the galaxy....a fine target

[RobF (Rob)]

Wonderful start Mike. I wondered when we'd start to hear from you and the new rig. Thanks for sharing early efforts. Cool to see the new Enterprise come up to lightspeed, but I'm sure we'll be seeing Warp 9 images in months/years to come too

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

....a swarm of young globulars (do they exist?) sounds good though

Haha, probably not!
Was making up answers for what I saw, trying to figure why they didn't extend far from the galaxy.
Swarm of globulars sounds good to me