Smoke Ring Galaxies in Virgo

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by rogerg

Mike,

I’ve been thinking about your Orion AG. It produces such nice results in part due to the matching of your focal length to chip size. I have been considering what OTA to replace my 12” SCT with. Current top contender is the 16” GSO RC when it comes out if it’s up to scratch. But your Orion has me thinking.

What’s the disadvantage to a fast focal ratio like your AG? Or is there a disadvantage to the position of the camera? Or is the only disadvantage cost and the telescope is otherwise perfect?

My thought goes like this: Not being on top of a Chilean mountain my FWHM is never going to get better than my usual 4”-6”. Pixel scale less than 1” is wasted on me, usually less than 1.5” is wasted on me. Hence, focal lengths > ~2000mm are wasted on me, but aperture I want. One can overcome this by binning 2x2 permanently or by decreasing the focal length. The Orion AG being the latter option.

Any comments based on your experience?

All depends on what you have in mind, I wanted speed, aperture, semsitivity, versatility and portability (greedy huh ). In my mind 1200mm FL provides the best compromise with a large chip and 9micron pixels to cover all bases quite well and the speeeeeed is a god send

I've sent you an email

Mike

[Leonardo70 (Leonardo Orazi)]

Hi Mike ... Virgo time. A lot of galaxies to shot.
Very nice, wait for the color.

All the best,
Leo

[astronobob (Bob)]

Awesome Imaging, awesome field , hang on, ran out of words, , , oh, awesome details, and awesome equipment, so , overall, yep awesome stuff, top show and best for the colour Mike ! !

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

That's a really interesting field - haven't seen anything like it before. Thanks for sharing Mike

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Beautiful Mike! Very cool target

Is it possible to image Einstein Rings i.e. gravitational lensing with your setup or is that Professional Observatory/Hubble land

Just curious because that would be a cool fenoma to image

[cybereye (Mario)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I totally get your sentiment Mario, the image made me feel exactly the same... we need to image together, I can feel it

Mike

...and after we've finished a rousing chorus of "Nessun Dorma" whilst imaging, we'll get stuck into a slab of VB, listen to 2GB's continuous call team call the footy and then catch a bit of Blokesworld on Foxtel....

[Ross G]

Great photo Mike.

So many galaxies......amazing!


Ross.

[avandonk]

I downloaded your image Mike and subjected it to extreme torture so I could see the faint stuff. It was very revealing in the negative form. The signal to noise is very good for such a short data aquisition.

How big will your observatory be? I may just park my system there to take advantage of your dark skies.



Bert

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Leonardo70

Hi Mike ... Virgo time. A lot of galaxies to shot.
Very nice, wait for the color.

All the best,
Leo

Cheers Leo, there is so much in Virgo besides that in the more popular area

Originally Posted by astronobob

Awesome Imaging, awesome field , hang on, ran out of words, , , oh, awesome details, and awesome equipment, so , overall, yep awesome stuff, top show and best for the colour Mike ! !

Well that's just awesome to hear Bob

Originally Posted by peter_4059

That's a really interesting field - haven't seen anything like it before. Thanks for sharing Mike

Yes it is a cool bit of Virgo not in the more popular area of Makarians Chain

Originally Posted by ourkind

Beautiful Mike! Very cool target

Is it possible to image Einstein Rings i.e. gravitational lensing with your setup or is that Professional Observatory/Hubble land

Just curious because that would be a cool fenoma to image

Gravitational lenses are very faint and fine details, very hard to pick up in amateur sized scopes. They can be detected but without a comparison with a Hubble image you would never know.

Originally Posted by cybereye

...and after we've finished a rousing chorus of "Nessun Dorma" whilst imaging, we'll get stuck into a slab of VB, listen to 2GB's continuous call team call the footy and then catch a bit of Blokesworld on Foxtel....

Too right

Originally Posted by Ross G

Great photo Mike.

So many galaxies......amazing!


Ross.

Cheers Rossco

Originally Posted by avandonk

I downloaded your image Mike and subjected it to extreme torture so I could see the faint stuff. It was very revealing in the negative form. The signal to noise is very good for such a short data aquisition.

How big will your observatory be? I may just park my system there to take advantage of your dark skies.

Bert

Cool, glad to hear, only fair, after sharing all your precious Italian photons

Suuuure!!! I have a Sirius 2.3m Observatory kit in the shed

Mike

[ChrisM]

Nice work Mike. Looking forward to seeing this project progress.
Chris

[RobF (Rob)]

Love it. Really gets you thinking about things looking at a field like that.
Glad to see your new home site is paying big dividends too Mike.