NGC 253 a complex stella metropolis - Page 2

h0ughy (David) · #21 14-02-2013, 09:29 PM

Mike - well i never - superPhotonman --in Metropolis!!!

its an interesting mix of stuff in there - huge field

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #22 15-02-2013, 12:18 AM

Loads of detail there Mike.

cybereye (Mario) · #23 15-02-2013, 07:13 AM

Mike, that is amazing!!

allan gould · #24 15-02-2013, 03:58 PM

Mike
I respect you work and abilities tremendously but I cant help comparing it to Gabany's work which I also admire (and Greg Bradley also compared his work to yours in this thread). I have attached his image in what I hope is a fair comparison about what I meant yours appeared too Vegas for my tastes. Your detail is there but I still feel the colour is too harsh.
Hope you see it as a personal taste from my point of view and I know others will disagree.
Allan

strongmanmike (Michael) · #25 15-02-2013, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allan gould

Mike
I respect you work and abilities tremendously but I cant help comparing it to Gabany's work which I also admire (and Greg Bradley also compared his work to yours in this thread). I have attached his image in what I hope is a fair comparison about what I meant yours appeared too Vegas for my tastes. Your detail is there but I still feel the colour is too harsh.
Hope you see it as a personal taste from my point of view and I know others will disagree.
Allan

Hi Allan

Interesting you bring this image up actually, although I don't review images of what I am processing before starting on my data, I do often look afterwards to compare. Of course I looked at RJ's work in this after the fact perusal and indeed I remember when he first did it, I was in back and forth direct email contact with him at the time about it even and I recall saying that I thought it was the second best NGC 253 image ever taken by an amateur (THIS is the best IMO... the seeing quality is everything!) ...I can see them well in my image but how RJ revealed those rising streamers in the way he has is beyond me...quite spectacular.

On your instigation and for a more direct comparison though, I have zoomed in, cropped and shrunk my NGC 253 down to match the field of the GaBany version you posted, see it HERE. Now of course, remember RJ's image was taken using an awesome 20" F8 RC on a PME, in a dome, 7000ft up in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico in the US....mine was taken using a 12" F3.8 from outside Canberra at 2000ft in a completely exposed environment..although the wind wasn't really a problem during the data collection for this image and the seeing was quite reasonable too (compared to Newcastle

)

Like you say I really think it comes down to personal preference and what the imager is specifically trying to reveal or display. I was really shooting for the very faint outer halo around the galaxy which is so seldom visible in images of this galaxy (inlcuding RJ's), in fact I can only find a couple of others that reveal it so obviously, I wanted to show the background galaxies and the galactic cirrus in the region too (not noticeable in this tight crop FOV) then I wanted to give the galaxy itself some colour impact...remember I do love blue

and highlight the plethora of HII regions . Of course, as you say not everyone will be 100% happy with my colour choices but that is the nature of the game we are in

It is an interesting discussion, and good on you for taking it beyond "nice image" or even "Too Vegas"

Mike

strongmanmike (Michael) · #26 15-02-2013, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by h0ughy

Mike - well i never - superPhotonman --in Metropolis!!!

its an interesting mix of stuff in there - huge field

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Loads of detail there Mike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cybereye

Mike, that is amazing!!

Cheers guys, just for having a look (again)

Mike

allan gould · #27 15-02-2013, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Hi Allan

Interesting you bring this image up actually, although I don't review images of what I am processing before starting on my data, I do often look afterwards to compare. Of course I looked at RJ's work in this after the fact perusal and indeed I remember when he first did it, I was in back and forth direct email contact with him at the time about it even and I recall saying that I thought it was the second best NGC 253 image ever taken by an amateur (THIS is the best IMO... the seeing quality is everything!) ...I can see them well in my image but how RJ revealed those rising streamers in the way he has is beyond me...quite spectacular.

On your instigation and for a more direct comparison though, I have zoomed in, cropped and shrunk my NGC 253 down to match the field of the GaBany version you posted, see it HERE. Now of course, remember RJ's image was taken using an awesome 20" F8 RC on a PME, in a dome, 7000ft up in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico in the US....mine was taken using a 12" F3.8 from outside Canberra at 2000ft in a completely exposed environment..although the wind wasn't really a problem during the data collection for this image and the seeing was quite reasonable too (compared to Newcastle

)

Like you say I really think it comes down to personal preference and what the imager is specifically trying to reveal or display. I was really shooting for the very faint outer halo around the galaxy which is so seldom visible in images of this galaxy (inlcuding RJ's), in fact I can only find a couple of others that reveal it so obviously, I wanted to show the background galaxies and the galactic cirrus in the region too (not noticeable in this tight crop FOV) then I wanted to give the galaxy itself some colour impact...remember I do love blue

and highlight the plethora of HII regions . Of course, as you say not everyone will be 100% happy with my colour choices but that is the nature of the game we are in

It is an interesting discussion, and good on you for taking it beyond "nice image" or even "Too Vegas"

Mike

Mike
I was quite aware of the image by Volker Wendel and Bernd Flach-Wilken but personally I would place it behind yours for detail and a third behind Gabaney's image, which I placed at numero uno. And thats because I liked his detail combined with colour processing.
Its fine as I realised you were trying for the faint halo of NGC253 but I think you got that better in a deep refractor image some time ago (if my memory serves correctly). If its faint detail - you are starting to catch the Gabaney streamers but of course a bigger scope and better seeing will make all the difference. Take your present scope to altitude and it would scream.
You certainly achieved the emphasis of Ha and outer young stars

and its still better than anything Ive done.
Its a "nice Vegas image"

Good on you for doing it your way
Allan

strongmanmike (Michael) · #28 15-02-2013, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allan gould

Its fine as I realised you were trying for the faint halo of NGC253 but I think you got that better in a deep refractor image some time ago (if my memory serves correctly).

Actually no, I have never caught even a scrap of the faint halo before (very few have) hence why I made this the first object using the AG12 from my new dark sky site outside Canberra

Mike

allan gould · #29 16-02-2013, 12:35 AM

Mike
My bad. What I was remembering was your image http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...38890/original
from October 2012 that was an inverted image to show the stellar halo around NGC253. I thought that it was taken with your refractor and didn't realize it was with the new 12" and that you had Sidonio'ed the data for this posting.
Allan

strongmanmike (Michael) · #30 16-02-2013, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by allan gould

Mike
My bad. What I was remembering was your image http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...38890/original
from October 2012 that was an inverted image to show the stellar halo around NGC253. I thought that it was taken with your refractor and didn't realize it was with the new 12" and that you had Sidonio'ed the data for this posting.
Allan

Yep, all THESE are composed from the same data set taken on first light from Wallaroo

...you know me

The faint Milky Way cirrus is most obvious in the wider field crops and the faint galaxy halo is clearly visible in all versions, just not obvious in the close in Island Universe crop since the entire space around the galaxy in this framing is full of halo and I used slightly different processing as it was detail that I was after in this version not depth, so the halo just looks like a milky background

Mike

silv (Annette) · #31 21-01-2016, 08:59 PM

hey Mike

so this gorgeous image was your entry to the 2013 contest which then lead to the >> discovery?

The blue smudge is so prominent in this image that I was thinking:

would it be worth it for you adding a step in your postprocessing workflow to let the all objects be registered/named that are visible in your fullframe-fast-scope-imaging-Tardis?
(And if an object can not be named by the software, then >Bingo< again.)

I am flabbergasted by your discovery.
And in absolute awe of your blue-ish processed NGC 253.
Beautiful!

Silv

strongmanmike (Michael) · #32 22-01-2016, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silv

hey Mike

so this gorgeous image was your entry to the 2013 contest which then lead to the >> discovery?

The blue smudge is so prominent in this image that I was thinking:

would it be worth it for you adding a step in your postprocessing workflow to let the all objects be registered/named that are visible in your fullframe-fast-scope-imaging-Tardis?
(And if an object can not be named by the software, then >Bingo< again.)

I am flabbergasted by your discovery.
And in absolute awe of your blue-ish processed NGC 253.
Beautiful!

Silv

Ha ha, yeah that's her Silv

I did quite a few different processing versions actually and different crops, the eventual entry in the ROG competition was THIS ONE

Hey, what you suggest might be worth a try...I have never done this myself so not sure of the exact process

Thanks again for your kind words

Mike

silv (Annette) · #33 22-01-2016, 02:58 AM

dcrowson in this >>thread describes one way and links to a tutorial PDF.

I'm sure other IIS members use and know different ways of labelling images.

and who knows? you might be the one to discover the tenth planet this way?

btw: the smudge is so prominent in your image in #1 (and still in the blue-reduced version for the contest) because you like blue so much.
lucky you! that's going to help you with more discoveries, as well. you'll see

AG Hybrid (Adrian) · #34 22-01-2016, 09:26 AM

Your full frame image is absolutely amazing. Even the little extra galaxies are top notch too.

Fabiomax (Fabiomassimo) · #35 23-01-2016, 04:47 AM

Hi Mike,

first my congratulations to the discovery of the galaxy in the field. I took example from your work and I have sent my picture to Delgado .... unfortunately there was nothing new :-)
Looking at your picture I think is really exciting as 1120 of focal and 1.6 sec / pix you can have, in particular seeing conditions, a very interesting details. I also think that having a large focal obviously helps, but maybe it is an underestimation of the potential of a focal not too high to get very good results. For example Bernhard Hubl with a similar focal got really interesting images. I always follow your beautiful work.
Cheers,
Fabiomax