Massive Fornax Galaxy Cluster

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by EddieT

That's an absolutely beautiful image Mike!
Love it.

Glad you liked it ddie....I feel a tad inadequate though ...it was only a single frame mosaic

Mike

[EddieT (Eddie)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Glad you liked it ddie....I feel a tad inadequate though ...it was only a single frame mosaic

Mike

Haha. Well you have noone to blame but yourself for that!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by EddieT

Haha. Well you have noone to blame but yourself for that!

Yes I need to take some (more? ) crazy pills...and some Valium to help my patience levels . Seriously, I think the only thing stopping me finally venturing into mosaics is the lack of a permanent setup

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Mike,

a stunning shot! I like your field selection. You have only missed a few stragglers whilst picking up all of the main protagonists.

There is very nice detail in both the ellipticals and the SO galaxies not to mention a beautiful rendition of the skys' best barred-spiral.

May more fine weather come your way soon.

Cheers

Coops

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Gee thanks Coops, so glad you liked the image!

This galaxy and cluster was always a favourite of mine when I was a young man viewing through my 8" F7:

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...64271/original

I loved seeing how many galaxies I could get in the field of the 26mm Plossl

It was an area therefore that I had always wanted to image and image properly...well, over 25 years after first viewing this field I was very happy with the resulting image .

Mike

[RobF (Rob)]

Whew - just stunning Mike. So smooth, but so detailed.

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Mike,

thanks for sharing that with us. Quite a set up for the mid 80's. We didn't get into Cold Cameras, although we did consider them. My mate Noel Munford and I went down the hypersensitizing road. Our film of choice back then was a 100 asa slide film, Fuji D-100. It had the best colour balance of any film we used. Having said that exposures ranged from 30 to 60 minutes.

David Malin stayed at Noel's home back in 1987 on a visit to N.Z. David set his 10x8 of NGC 253 next to ours and we stood about 4m away. The colour was the same, but even at that distance the grain structure difference was obvious. One through a 12 inch f/7 Newtonian, the other through the Anglo-Australian 48 inch Schmidt! But the colour was good so we were happy.

I first saw the Fornax Cluster through my first telescope, a 4 inch f/9 on a wobbly mount bought for just over $100 from a camera shop. That was a surprisingly good deep-sky 'scope considering the small mirror. The f/9 setup gave great contrast which was important when I was living in the city back then and viewing from the subburbs.

Now for the big question. What is your next target?

[pgc hunter]

Awesome image! I notice alot of tiny fuzzy dots around NGC 1399 - are these background galaxies or globular clusters? Either way, what an achievement!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by pgc hunter

Awesome image! I notice alot of tiny fuzzy dots around NGC 1399 - are these background galaxies or globular clusters? Either way, what an achievement!

Yep they are Globs!: http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...46215/original

Cheers heaps!

Mike

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Ian Cooper

Hi Mike,

thanks for sharing that with us. Quite a set up for the mid 80's. We didn't get into Cold Cameras, although we did consider them. My mate Noel Munford and I went down the hypersensitizing road. Our film of choice back then was a 100 asa slide film, Fuji D-100. It had the best colour balance of any film we used. Having said that exposures ranged from 30 to 60 minutes.

David Malin stayed at Noel's home back in 1987 on a visit to N.Z. David set his 10x8 of NGC 253 next to ours and we stood about 4m away. The colour was the same, but even at that distance the grain structure difference was obvious. One through a 12 inch f/7 Newtonian, the other through the Anglo-Australian 48 inch Schmidt! But the colour was good so we were happy.

I first saw the Fornax Cluster through my first telescope, a 4 inch f/9 on a wobbly mount bought for just over $100 from a camera shop. That was a surprisingly good deep-sky 'scope considering the small mirror. The f/9 setup gave great contrast which was important when I was living in the city back then and viewing from the subburbs.

Now for the big question. What is your next target?

Yes I had a close meeting with David a year or so before you, he gave me a signed copy of his book Colours of the Stars and took a few of my negs and processsed them for me - amplified and unsharp maksed'em

My next target..?...with the new 16803 chip on its way...maybe another but bigger galaxy cluster ..hard though, depends on so many things

Mike