(Not) M104 season

[atalas]

Looks great Peter.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Lovely image Peter, this just gets better and better each and every addition of data.
Beautiful.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Yeah Galaxy Wars in a dome far far away a 14.25" ion milled RC takes on a pristene 6" refractor in a.... cow paddock ...

Methinks peter has won this battle, time to get some bigger guns mike..... 12 inch reflector perhaps

A repro of data to be sure, but it's worth another look, agree with jase the luminescence through the dust's lovely. At larger magnification it might look a little over sharpened, but here it looks good. The outer halo does appear to have some stepping in the tones, a little blurring might help. But overall, I wish my gear would do that well

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very cool. Great pic. The dust lane details and the nucleus are unreal. Top shelf.

[Peter Ward]

Thanks guys, your positive comments are as always, appreciated. Just some background info. The scope is a F7.9 computer polished (no ion milling) RCOS 14.25".

Bulk of the data (about 5 hours) was through a STL11000 with an AOL.
Another 40 minutes of STX16803 luminance was added for the re-pro.

In either case M104 is placed about as poorly as possible in the North (right in the sky glow of downtown Sydney) as it transits when seen from my backyard.

This causes all sorts of grief with gradients which I suspect I'll only ever solve fully by a re-shoot from a dark site.

[wysiwyg (Mark)]

Nice one Peter!

[Paul Haese]

Love the colour, perspective and detail. Some of the speckle needs to be there I think to give the edge detail some authenticity. I think this is why the image looks just a teenie weeny plastic to me.

Hoooowever, I personally would be absolutely stoked with this image if I took it. The warm tones really do it for me. Nice repro Peter. Wanna loan me your scope? I have lots of clear sky here.

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

ahh.. I remember the original posting! Thought to myself - "The best ever image I have ever seen (including the HST version in the comparitive analysis!)". You could probably die now and go to Astro Photography heaven having reached the pinicle with this image?!? > But I am sure there is another masterpiece brewing in you yet!

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by CoolhandJo

.......... Thought to myself - "The best ever image I have ever seen (including the HST version in the comparitive analysis!)"........

Thank you indeed. There are so many narrow field objects I'd like to investigate at high-res. Unfortunately, SBIG's new differential guider and AO-X is unlikely to be available before mid 2011 which (like the weather) will hamstring my efforts....but hopefully at least the East Coast weather will clear before then!

[gregbradley]

That is superb. I also like the way the glow of the nucleus shows through the dusty ring. Amazing what can be achieved with today's gear. That would have been beyond the standard of professional observatories not that long ago.

Greg.

[bartman (Bart)]

Thats Awesome Peter,
As Steve said whatever you have done with it, its still bewdiful!
As said before I like the glow of the nucleus on the disk!
Bartman

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Methinks peter has won this battle, time to get some bigger guns mike..... 12 inch reflector perhaps

Yes I am just flattered that Peter decided to post his version straight after I posted mine, this far out from M104 season t'is a remarkable coincidence ...the war thing was coined by Houghy not me, I just ran with the gag . Yes even though the final appearence looks rather painted and the orange core glow not real, the detail in Peters image is astonishing...almost too good .

Mike

[TrevorW]

As always nice, however the core seems a bit wrong and there appears to be some star elongation (but I could be cross eyed from looking at the image), personally I prefer the original but there again this is what happens when there is foul weather and we get bored. Personally I'd go on a very long road trip, hitch a ride with Leon, there's bound to be dark skies somewhere out there.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Yes I am just flattered that Peter decided to post his version straight after I posted mine, this far out from M104 season t'is a remarkable coincidence...

Something lost in translation here? No co-incidence as my interest was piqued after seeing you data Mike....as I mentioned in my original post.

M014 is not a subject I tackle with my 6" AP as I'm of the opinion the CCD sampling is beyond its limit at that focal length for an optimal result.

There are many many layers to my data (about 80 or more....as I frankly lost count) which may well have contributed to some elongation of stars during the stacking process.

But I was curious to see how the range of my data would fare after similar treatment. Quibbles to be sure, but I'm pretty happy with the result.