I've seen a few images over the last week of this, so I thought I'd have a go too!
I drove the 600km out to Mt Magnet with my 25" to do some outreach last week, and camped in behind Mt Singleton on the way up. Although the clouds were threatening when we set up camp, it cleared up around 8pm. Unfortunately I'd already written the night off and had consumed too much wine to set up the big dob - but was able to get the G11 polar aligned and try out the new-to-me old Nikon 50mm 1.8D on the SMC and LMC. Turns out these are a bit over-hyped, and the newer 1.4G is a considerably better performer in terms of coma. But - 1 hours worth and it was relatively easy to pull these very deep structures out!
For a $150 lens brand new the 50mm F/1.8D is a pretty good performer. The F/1.4G might be better but its several times more expensive too
You've captured the tidal streams well though!
Hi Colin - I picked up the 1.8D second hand for 100, but you can pick up those G lenses as well for peanuts. I haven't even been able to give mine away! I don't think either of them are good enough for AP, so the search continues for something that will. I guess I'll try the Sigma next :-(
Here's a comparison between the two, the 1.8 is very good on-axis, but woeful at the corners. Both of these images were at f3.5.
😎 indeed. These inverted images are brilliant for showing this stuff. Well done!
Thanks David - it shows that the reality is far more complex than a simple bridge between the two! It looks like the sort of smoke trail you might get if you tied two rockets together.
Nice one. Certainly not seen the tidal streams around the LMC before.
is that well known??
cheers
Martin
These tidal streams have been quite extensively studied in the past decade. These fainter regions are thought to be remnants of past interactions between the two dwarf galaxies.
There is a tidal bridge of neutral hydrogen that connects the LMC and SMC, very little is known about this one however and it has only been very recently that a faint magnetic bridge has been found to extend along this bridge. If it wasn't raining so much down in Melbourne I do want to give a crack at trying to detect the bridge with a Sigma Art 85mm and two panels with a QHY163M.
At this stage, going to have to wait until next new moon
There is a tidal stream visible, extending out from the SMC, but the other long features have nothing to do with the Magellanic clouds. If I remember correctly, they are just galactic cirrus that is all over the place in that direction.
There is a tidal stream visible, extending out from the SMC, but the other long features have nothing to do with the Magellanic clouds. If I remember correctly, they are just galactic cirrus that is all over the place in that direction.
Thanks for that Stefan - the long features definitely have the right dusty colour for galactic cirrus, and there's no way for me to resolve them into stars. I thought the morphology was too coincidental though, it really looks like the LMC is connected to the end of one.
Your image is spectacular- I think it may be the one I remembered seeing that inspired me to try this field! I'm quite unimpressed with the coma on that older Nikon lens though, your Pentax looks much sharper.
Cheers
Andrew.
This is an area of great interest as even if its been imaged by pros at some point in the amateur community its brand new. Great image there as well Stefan. What was the lens and the camera for that image?
This is an area of great interest as even if its been imaged by pros at some point in the amateur community its brand new. Great image there as well Stefan. What was the lens and the camera for that image?
Greg.
I used a 1980s SMC Pentax-M, 50mm f:1.7, stopped to f:2.8 and a QHY8 camera. My image is a 3 panel mosaic.
