It's NGC253 season after all....

[spearo (Frank)]

beautiful shot!
frank

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

So, umm, does that mean just the toys are good, like umm, its mainly the tools .

Humm where did I put my hammer

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

It comes down to "enhancement" and reality. It is not a hard task to enhance any part of an image, simply to show some aspect of feature.

However, when literally "brush stroking" in localized sharpening, one needs some "higher knowledge" that the feature is indeed present, and not simply a random interpretation of an astronomical ink blot test.

Really high res images (eg the ESO data I linked to) of NGC253 do not show these streamers. Not much more to say really....

First of all not a bad NGC 253 Peter.

Those streamers are deffinitely real but RJ just enhanced and extended them in a way that I too found a bit fakish but as most agree it is still an amazing image of NGC 253 regardless.

I've posted a link to this before but I still think the best natural looking but very dramatic NGC 253 and surrounds image by an amateur style scope is this one and the streamers are very visible across the disc too but far more naturally:

http://www.spiegelteam.de/ngc253.htm


Mike

[Peter Ward]

Found the hammer...A significantly different re-pro ! (and more recent data)

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery32.html


Hard to match high altitude pristine Namibian skies with the light-polluted-smog of Sydney...but it feels good when I stop banging my head against the wall

[Garyh]

Nice repro Peter! Finer details showing through
I just can never see these streamers that people talk about?

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Garyh

Nice repro Peter! Finer details showing through
I just can never see these streamers that people talk about?

Here is the image that has been talked about. The rising streamers have been enhanced in RJ's processing making for a truly amazing image!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...3_gabany_f.jpg

It's a fine line between this image and the Spiegel teams:

http://www.spiegelteam.de/ngc253.htm

I lean slightly toward the Spiegel Team image for its incredible resolution and slightly more natural look but both are bench mark images of NGC 253 in my opinion.

Mike

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Garyh

Nice repro Peter! Finer details showing through
I just can never see these streamers that people talk about?

Thanks Gary. Yep, I'm much happier with this version ( it has about 2 hours of new luminance data). With spatial filtering you can "airbrush/layer" in the apparent streamers.

But they remind me a bit of the "martian canals"....a perceived (due to lack of resolution) rather than real feature.

Weather permitting I'll be trying for more data tonight.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

With spatial filtering you can "airbrush/layer" in the apparent streamers.

But they remind me a bit of the "martian canals"....a perceived (due to lack of resolution) rather than real feature.

I dunno Peter, if you scroll down to the full res close up image by the Spiegel team the streamers are pretty clear, the galaxy looks like it is full of bushfires with many rising pumes of smoke and they haven't been airbrushed in as far as I can tell. RJ's image on the other hand I concur with you, his version does look doctored some how..? But given the streamers, unlike the Martian Canals, are clearly real, I guess we can grant him a smidgin of artistic license there?

Mike

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I dunno Peter, if you scroll down to the full res close up image by the Spiegel team the streamers are pretty clear, the galaxy looks like it is full of bushfires with many rising pumes of smoke ........

Mike

Yep there is something subtle going on there, but when I look at really high-res data, such as what I pointed to earlier:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081002.html

I only see lots of interesting, indeed turbulent, dust lanes with no obvious spikes.

Some sort of celestial Rorschach test?

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Yep there is something subtle going on there, but when I look at really high-res data, such as what I pointed to earlier:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081002.html

I only see lots of interesting, indeed turbulent, dust lanes with no obvious spikes.

Some sort of celestial Rorschach test?

I think that NASA data is too close-up to notice them but they are there too, you ned to view a wide view to make it out I think?

You can notice the streamers in my humble effort from last year even:

http://upload.pbase.com/strongmanmik...66688/original

Mike

[Bassnut (Fred)]

I got a hint of streamers in my image too, without pushing it too hard, no excuses Peter, try harder .

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I think that NASA data is too close-up to notice them.....

Err...like the Mariner probes showed craters and not canals?

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Mighty fine image there Peter!

Cheers, Marcus

[sjastro]

I agree with Peter.

The spikes (particularly along the edge of the galaxy) of J Gabany's image is clearly the result of artistic license.

I can understand why some astroimagers question the ethics of image processing.

Regards

Steven