Galaxy NGC3521 18.15 hours

[gregbradley]

I actually took closer to 50 hours of this one as part of my new program of imaging doing very long exposures as my normal thing.

2 hard disk failures, a reflection problem that wasn't there last time I used my scope (it took a while to get to the bottom of it) and the usual losses to cloud etc took a toll.

I ended up with 18.15 hours of usable high quality data. Some of the seeing though was sensational and I was amazed at the downloads.

I also started using 15 minute subs after tweaking the PME mount.

This galaxy has a large distorted star halo around it. It appears to be distorted by either another smaller orbiting galaxy or perhaps its merged with another smaller galaxy at some point in the past.

I was pleased to be able to capture the extended halo of stars.

CDK17, Proline 16803, MMOAG, PME:

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/143843538/large regular size

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/ima...43538/original large size

Greg.

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

That's a beauty Greg. One of your very best I would think. I thought I was looking at a R Jay Gabany image for a moment.

Cheers

Steve

[Dr. Washington (Daniel)]

Amazing detail in the lanes of the galaxy, beautiful photo.

[DJT (David)]

That's a fantastic image..love the detail

[Paul Haese]

Very nice Greg. Heaps of detail with a plethora of smaller galaxies in the back ground.

[Jeffkop (Jeff)]

Awesome Greg ... Amazing starfield that is flat to the edges too ... Some handy processing as well ... It looks like a very faint target ... So even 18 hours still adds up to good processing ability required even though I know you said you had some rediculously good seeing.

[allan gould]

Looks like you have captured a number of globular clusters surrounding this galaxy as well as the haze of stars above the plane of the galaxy. Beautiful.
But whats giving the unusual spike (diffraction?) on bright stars?

[Tandum (Robin)]

That's a terrific image greg, I like it

[RickS (Rick)]

Great image and well worth all those hours you put into it, Greg!

[alan meehan (Alan)]

Amazing image Greg such a spectacular galaxy,well done
AL

[Tom Davis (Tom)]

Very beautiful, Greg!!

-Tom

[Ross G]

WOW!

What an amazing galaxy photo.

I agree with the others Greg, this is one your best photos.

Thanks for the view.

Ross.

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Wow. Fantastic shot Greg. Congratulations on the capture.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Wow 2 days of imaging huh? ...ooooh I can't wait to have an observatory again.....

Is that swirling gas above the galaxy something that is not usually seen?

Did you need to use noise reduction at all?

Yeh, I see a touch of the Gabany look too

Mike

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Stevec35

That's a beauty Greg. One of your very best I would think. I thought I was looking at a R Jay Gabany image for a moment.

Cheers

Steve

High praise - wow, thanks Steve.

Originally Posted by Dr. Washington

Amazing detail in the lanes of the galaxy, beautiful photo.

I was very happy with the detail the scope was picking up. Part of that is the good seeing I was having.

Originally Posted by DJT

That's a fantastic image..love the detail

Thanks for that. A surprising amount of detail did come out.

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Very nice Greg. Heaps of detail with a plethora of smaller galaxies in the back ground.

Cheers Paul. The 17 does pick up those little background galaxies very well.Too bad its so large and heavy or I'd take it to my dark site observatory for an imaging run.

Originally Posted by Jeffkop

Awesome Greg ... Amazing starfield that is flat to the edges too ... Some handy processing as well ... It looks like a very faint target ... So even 18 hours still adds up to good processing ability required even though I know you said you had some rediculously good seeing.

Cheers Jeff. It does go through quite an amazing transformation to get to the final image. I spent about a week on the processing and various versions until I got to the point where I thought - thats it, its not going to improve from here.

Originally Posted by allan gould

Looks like you have captured a number of globular clusters surrounding this galaxy as well as the haze of stars above the plane of the galaxy. Beautiful.
But whats giving the unusual spike (diffraction?) on bright stars?

CDK has secondary vanes. Funnily enough it tends not to give diffraction spikes unless the stars are quite bright. Also the Proline tends to give a little diagonal spike on some stars. My Microline doesn't so that only the Proline. Some little quirk there.

Originally Posted by alan meehan

Amazing image Greg such a spectacular galaxy,well done
AL

Thanks Alan. I've always liked this galaxy and its an unsual looking one with not many deep exposure examples around.

Originally Posted by Tom Davis

Very beautiful, Greg!!

-Tom

Cheers Tom! It is a striking galaxy.

Originally Posted by obsidianphotos

Wow. Fantastic shot Greg. Congratulations on the capture.

Thanks Greg! It was a lot of work but I am happy with the final result.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Wow 2 days of imaging huh? ...ooooh I can't wait to have an observatory again.....

Is that swirling gas above the galaxy something that is not usually seen?

Did you need to use noise reduction at all?

Yeh, I see a touch of the Gabany look too

Mike

2 days? Naah more like 2-3 months. The observatory of course makes it possible. I'd simply set it up, frame it, click start and close everything up next morning. Minimal noise reduction, I am not a big fan of that either and is another reason why I want to do mega exposure imaging so the signal is strong enough to take the processing without too much noise.

I have another galaxy image that is 27 hours from about 35 hours worth which was a better survival rate of data.

Greg

[Gem (Grant)]

Nice! Good to see some less imaged objects being imaged too. Keep it up!

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Gem

Nice! Good to see some less imaged objects being imaged too. Keep it up!

Thanks Grant! I am always on the lookout for new and interesting objects to image. It amazes me how there are always new ones being imaged on a regular basis. There is a lot of stuff out there.

Greg.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Ha Yesss! Very cool Greg. Lovely result.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Ha Yesss! Very cool Greg. Lovely result.

Cheers Marc. I certainly put in the hard yards on this one. It represents a lot of work.

Greg.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

That's a fantastic image Greg!!! Well done!!!!

18 hours with a 17" will always do the trick!!

Cheers, Marcus