Antennae 24 hrs

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Lovely job M&T - so nice to see you guys back imaging again!

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by Andy01

Lovely job M&T - so nice to see you guys back imaging again!

Thanks, Andy. The tiny little background galaxies are what this beastie seems particularly good at.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

What I find fascinating is the incredible detail in the tails. I did this object a while back so I can see what I have missed. Hard to go past this one

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Beautiful M&T. Such great image scale and detail.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by Geoff45

What I find fascinating is the incredible detail in the tails. I did this object a while back so I can see what I have missed. Hard to go past this one

Many thanks Geoff. We remember your image. It was impressive.

Originally Posted by Retrograde

Beautiful M&T. Such great image scale and detail.

Cheers Pete!

[Phil Hart]

Wow That's amazing. Stunning work.. like the others said.

Phil

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by philiphart

Wow That's amazing. Stunning work.. like the others said.

Phil

Thanks Phil, most kind.

[PeterSEllis (Peter)]

Originally Posted by Placidus

The Antennae are a pair of faint (mag 11.0, SB 13.7) galaxies (NGC 4038, 4039) heavily interacting galaxies on the Corvus-Crater border.

Big One Here

Luminance: 12 hrs. RGB: 4 hrs each. FLI PL16803 at -30C, on 20 inch PlaneWave CDK. As usual, all robotics and all acquisition and processing software designed and built in-house.

The luminance data are from this new moon. The RGB data are about 50% this month, and 50% from a couple years ago, using the Aspen CG16803M. We were blessed this time with still, dark sky and occasionally very good seeing, so we've not used any of the old luminance data.

The two extremely long and largely amorphous tidal tails evoke the head of a moth, hence the common name. For the wise, we know that they are really Go Gadget Arms. The pattern of bright blue star-forming regions within the colliding pair is most unusual, with no hint of the original spiral structure remaining.

The background shows countless very distant galaxies, with a group of orange-red ellipticals toward ten o'clock, and at least two quite separate distant colliding pairs, each with their own mouse-like tidal tails, about half way out toward 6:30 or 7:00.

Best,

Mike and Trish

That is a spectacular shot of the Antenna Galaxy. 24 Hours imaging, is only what I can dream about, at the moment I'm lucking if I can score 2 clear nights a month here.

Cheers
Peter

[codemonkey (Lee)]

That's an awesome rendition of the Antennae, guys! Congrats! Particularly good job on the tails.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Wow! I didn't know the antennae were that long. That pretty amazing

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by PeterSEllis

That is a spectacular shot of the Antenna Galaxy. 24 Hours imaging, is only what I can dream about, at the moment I'm lucking if I can score 2 clear nights a month here.

Cheers
Peter

Originally Posted by codemonkey

That's an awesome rendition of the Antennae, guys! Congrats! Particularly good job on the tails.

Originally Posted by ChrisV

Wow! I didn't know the antennae were that long. That pretty amazing

Peter, Lee, Chris, thanks very much for the kind words.

Teaser: We've since added another night of colour, and reprocessed it without any of the old Aspen stuff. It now shows that the tip of the south-eastern antenna has clumpy blue patches. Tonight we were all set to add a night of 2x2 binned data to get the extreme faintest parts of the tidal tails, but the seeing and transparency are off and it is threatening to rain in the morning. Might have to be next month.