Virgo galaxies (Makarian's Chain)

[RobF (Rob)]

I had the opportunity to image this area for almost a couple of hours from Leyburn dark skies earlier this week. It turned into a race against the trees, but I got twice as much data as initially expect as the field neatly slid down between large gum trees rather than behind.

Not enough to get colour and decent SNR, but way beyond what I can hope for normally from the 'burbs. Processed a bit harshly to hold down the noisy background. Still, I bagged quite a few of the blighters.


LRGB 20:20:20:20 mins (unbinned)
FSQ106@f3.7 & QHY9

[Lee]

Looks good - I love that region.... I'd need a 16 frame mosaic with my scope/CCD to get that field!

[Ross G]

Great capture Rob.

You've captured so many galaxies!

Ross.

[RobF (Rob)]

Thanks for looking guys.

Lee, I haven't had too many chances to play with the reducer, but funds are unlikely to allow a large format CCD for quite a while, and figured the small QHY9 pixels should be up to the task. It is nice to be able to see a bit wider for a change

[batema (Mark)]

It looks great Rob. How much do you love that scope???? Hope to see it working at astrofest.

Mark

[RobF (Rob)]

Hi Mark

Work-related travel is going to stop me getting to AF this year alas
The Tak is a keeper for sure. Been in the game long enough to start trying to get some higher quality gear together

[sjastro]

Nice capture Rob.

Steven

[RickS (Rick)]

You got a whole swarm of 'em. Well done, Rob! You seem to have a thing about imaging very close to horizontal

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Nice capture Rob.

Steven

Thanks Steven

Originally Posted by RickS

You got a whole swarm of 'em. Well done, Rob! You seem to have a thing about imaging very close to horizontal

Thanks for checking it out Rick. They would have been a lot higher if I hadn't left my imaging plan spreadsheet at home with co-ordinates, PAs, etc, along with clouds earlier in the night.
C'est la vie.....

Still, you could be right - there's something inherently tempting for me about extreme horizontal imaging
A couple of years ago I bagged M101 at 7 degrees high - now THAT's horizontal

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Nice image, Rob

[RobF (Rob)]

Thanks Larry!

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great shot Rob. Really cool.