Galaxy Group Hickson 56, NGC 3718 and NGC 3729

[johnrt]

A very, very difficult target indeed, the  surrounding flux and warped arms of the upper large galaxy NGC 3718 are lurking in the murky background urban sky noise and only just starting to appear after 10 hours exposure in 10 minute luminance subs. It is just there, tantalisingly close and saying "oh just go and get another 10 hours", but I'm not sure if I will. Perhaps a little beyond the capabilities of a 6" scope with a large-ish central obstruction. I think this one calls for aperture and lots of it!!

Altair Astro 6" RC, Atik 460ex IDAS LP2 filter. Captured with Sequence Generator Pro and processed in Pixinsight & CS5.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That is very nice. Not an object we see that often on SGL

[nmoushon]

Thats a great go at it! You captured a lot with your "little" 6" RC.  If I where you I would try for at least another night of lum. If anything it will help keep the noise down even more even if you dont pull anymore flux out. Also are you able to up your exposure length anymore? Not sure what mount you are using.

[johnrt]

I'm using an AZEQ6 so could push the exposure times further - I regularly shhot 15/20 minute Ha / OIII subs, but one concern is the background sky glow begging to get too much, I normally feel 10 minutes in luminance is the limit for my sky (especially if there is any kind of moon about).

I am tempted to keep ploughing on with this, but realistically to get to the next step of improvement I'm looking at another 10 hours

[lensman57]

Simply amazing John.

Regards,

A.G

[Piero]

Very interesting image! I think you and your RC6 did an excellent work!

Piero

[Martin Meredith]

Superb! You've also caught the rather nice Arp 322/V-V 150 grouping of 4 galaxies to the right of NGC 3718 which happen to be about 7 times distant.

Martin

[Steve 1962]

Lovely work John - really interesting subject too!

[kirkster501]

Looks really good John!

[johnrt]

Superb! You've also caught the rather nice Arp 322/V-V 150 grouping of 4 galaxies to the right of NGC 3718 which happen to be about 7 times distant.

Martin

Martin, I think the same Galaxy group to the right of NGC 3718 is also designated as Hickson 56 - at 7 times more distant that would make them about 364 million light years (give or take a few?)

Thank you all for the comments everyone, I get the feling I'm not done with this yet despite my reservations about carrying on

[Martin Meredith]

Martin, I think the same Galaxy group to the right of NGC 3718 is also designated as Hickson 56 - at 7 times more distant that would make them about 364 million light years (give or take a few?)

Thank you all for the comments everyone, I get the feling I'm not done with this yet despite my reservations about carrying on

Indeed, the same.  LEDA gives 390-409 million LYs for the 5 galaxies.

Martin

[PatrickGilliland]

Looks great to me - scope performed very well - I would be talking less about limitations of image and more about its virtues as great work.

Paddy  

[jeremile]

Great job and good details.

[bluedandelion]

Excellent work, John.

Ajay

[johnrt]

The saga continues - I dumped about 3 hours of images that weren't up to scratch and have added back in about 6 hours of additional subs. It hasn't really got me any "deeper" but has certainly helped deal with the noise. Slow going, and the RGB will now have to wait until the full moon is out the way.

[iksose7]

Looking good John, flicking between the two images on a separate tab i can see there is definitely some more signal coming through. The small structures under the right hand arm particularly stand out much more.

Callum

[tingting44]

coming along John! be very nice to see what this looks like when you add RGB

[frostynixon]

Very nice result! You also added an entry on my todo list

[ollypenrice]

How does he do it? HOW DOES HE DO IT??????

Exquisite resolution.

Olly

[nmoushon]

I bet once you add some RGB you'll be surprised out much you can tease out of the IFN. I do agree with you though and think you've about reached the limit on how deep you can go with your sub length. I think now the only way to go deeper is longer exposures....or cut the power to everything around you in a 50min radius to give yourself really dark skies.

[Tom OD]

That's a beauty. I did not think that was visible from the Uk. Excellently processed too.

[johnrt]

Thanks you all so much for the comments, you certainly know how to refocus someone flagging the the middle of what feels like a marathon.

As for how it's done, it's all an elaborate trick using mirrors

[swag72]

This is looking like a great image in the making John......... Well done