Astrofest 253

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Taken through the RC8 using my canon 20d.
9x5min @ iso 800
This is 2 different renditions of the same data.
I'll be adding more to this as the season progresses.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Nice shots JJJ

He's a little question for you and for everyone who has seen 253 often enough. When you look at the galaxy, which side do you think is the side closest to us and which side is farther away?? Some may know the answer to this, but in any case, this is a prime example of where the eye and the observation doesn't necessarily show you what's really going on, what is the case with any particular object you see. Hopefully, it's informative

[h0ughy (David)]

nice jjj and a few backgroiund galaxies to boot

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I often wonder about that Carl. I think we are looking at the underside of the Galaxy.

[Paul Haese]

With more data this will be a great image JJJ. You could saturate the blues a bit more but overall you have a nice image.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

I often wonder about that Carl. I think we are looking at the underside of the Galaxy.

You are, but there's some more to it. It has to do with which edge of the galaxy is closer to us.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

It's the dust lanes that give it away it's perspective. They are closest to us.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Got it in one

However, not everyone would think that. The telling fact in this equation is when you do a Doppler study of the galaxy's rotation. The side with all the dust is blueshift whilst the other "dustless" side is redshifted. The orientation of the galaxy is the thing which throws most people off. It's a difficult little beggar because it's almost edge on and the details you can see in the galaxy's arms tend to throw many people off the scent, so to speak. When you get to see piccies of it upside down relative to your piccie (depending on where in the sky they took the piccie), that makes it even harder to figure out once you tell them they're looking at the galaxy's underside.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Cool stuff JJJ. Looking forward to more.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Well done, Jeanette!

She's a beauty of a galaxy, ain't she!

If you add more to it, as you say, it's going to be a cracker.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

A popular target at the fest, it seems, the cropped one seems better, more crisp perhaps....... More data will help smooth it out and then you can push harder for even more detail.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

nice silver coin JJJ

:rofl :

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Forgive us Ron, but we couldn't help ourselves.

[TrevorW]

Just needs a lot of data this one, good effort JJ