Not a glamorous shot ...

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

This is not a big, colourful, in-your-face, wow-factor image. But it's got some white and grey smudges!!

Looking at deep images of faint objects always fascinates me so I thought I'd give it a try. This is a 75 minute Luminance only shot of Abell 3744 and vicinity. 3744 is the tight group of 3 NGC galaxies (7016 through 7018) that appears in the top left quadrant of this image. There are many faint galaxies also present down to at least the 18th magnitude.

Large: http://www.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/84064076/large
Full scale: http://www.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/84064076/original

I know - it's no hubble deep field, but I like it!! Now for another 36 hours of Luminance and 15 hours each of RG & B

Cheers, Marcus

[montewilson (Monte)]

Well done Marcus - I am quite impressed. I enjoy seeing the well known objects done well but I much prefer unusual objects. The resolving power of the Taks is great! I have great fun resolving tiny galaxy discs in my FSQ shots too.

[Garyh]

Now that something I havn`t seen before!
Well done!
It will make a cool image when you get some RGB data!
cheers Gary

[skeltz (Rob)]

yes good shot marcus,plenty to see in there .And tak sharp ..gootta love em!!
Are you going to do the rgb soon?
cheers rob

[RB (Andrew)]

Wow lovely shot Marcus, nice to see something different.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Theres a whole pile of galaxies there, nice work, would be nicer in colour ;-).

[jase (Jason)]

Nice work Marcus. The resolution looks impressive. I'm assuming you binned to get the sweet spot arcsec/pix?? Well done.

[Terry B]

Nice
I also like the challenge of getting any sort of image of dim objects. I've tried some of the Abel PN's. It would be nice to produce something like the attached image taken from DSS pics.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by Terry B

Nice
I also like the challenge of getting any sort of image of dim objects. I've tried some of the Abel PN's. It would be nice to produce something like the attached image taken from DSS pics.

Thanks Terry. I'd like to see how deep I could go with a 6" scope. This image shows galaxies down to 18th mag with only a modest (5x15 min) exposure. Maybe I'll try 20 min subs next time since I have reasonably dark skies here (except for the SE sky where the Sydney glow is quite severe). While I know mine's no masterpiece, I was actually a bit surprised that I got such a reasonable image, and I'm inspired to follow up.

Originally Posted by jase

Nice work Marcus. The resolution looks impressive. I'm assuming you binned to get the sweet spot arcsec/pix?? Well done.

Thanks Jase! No, no binning - binning's for whimps & chrominance In fact I've yet to do any binning at all!

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Theres a whole pile of galaxies there, nice work, would be nicer in colour ;-).

Thanks - and I agree. I'll need a camera for that though. While I was processing this image I realised my STL has a mild case of the dark vertical banding issue that some others have suffered in the past . SBIG are a good mob though - they'll be taking it back and fixing it for me. So, depending on how long it takes them, I may be off the air for a while

Originally Posted by Rocket Boy

Wow lovely shot Marcus, nice to see something different.

Cheers mate!! Can't remember who did it, but I thought the double star imaging I saw recently was interesting too.

Originally Posted by rpsastronomy

yes good shot marcus,plenty to see in there .And tak sharp ..gootta love em!!
Are you going to do the rgb soon?
cheers rob

Thanks Rob. Not until I get the camera back from the SBIG hospital - see above.

Originally Posted by Garyh

Now that something I havn`t seen before!
Well done!
It will make a cool image when you get some RGB data!
cheers Gary

Thanks Gary! I'd also want a lot more Lum as well. With 15-20 subs that will take a while ... my kingdom for an observatory!

Originally Posted by montewilson

Well done Marcus - I am quite impressed. I enjoy seeing the well known objects done well but I much prefer unusual objects. The resolving power of the Taks is great! I have great fun resolving tiny galaxy discs in my FSQ shots too.

Thanks Monte! The Tak is a great piece of kit. The EM400 is proving a good performer too. Soon I'll do some performance stats to see what kind of accuracy I'm getting. That may have to wait for an observatory though. Having to set up every time () - and usually only on a weekend makes each session so precious I just have to image - no time for experimentation!.

I need an observatory ... need an observatory ... need an observatory ... (Hmmmm, looks like I have a case of the Strongman blues! )

Can anyone tell me what the dimmest object anyone's ever managed to image in this forum? Mag 20+??

Cheers, Marcus

[Dr Nick (Nick)]

Nice!

Good description too! It actually DOES have some white and grey smudges there

[Ric]

Hi Marcus, that's a very nice image of a great collection of galaxies.

I always enjoy these types of images.

Cheers