NGC7331 and Stephan's Quintet.

[ollypenrice]

Last year I posted a fairly dreadful version of this! So for the last couple of nights I let the OSC chunter away unattended on the entirely reformed Tak mount (carryng TEC140) and busied myself at the other mount with something more fiddlesome. When a mount sits there all night and gives a guide trace like this you are laughing. Not a bad hit to be seen.

Anyway, 8 hours' data later, plus last year's, so 12 in all, gave me this. For an image that's never going to be an eye grabber I did spend a long time on a careful process though. Three combined stretches, etc. (Core of 7331/Star layer/Main image.) Check out the cute little barred spiral at the bottom.

Olly

[Starblazer]

Holy poop batman!!!! That's a corker of an image!

Sooo, many faint galaxies, stars pin sharp, this is fitting for APOD

Edit to add: left and bottom side are a tad darker on my monitor, showing a bit of a line which might be crop-able

[Breakintheclouds]

That's extraordinary. I've just spent about 5 minutes poring over that picture and I'm sure I still haven't found all the galaxies in it. Superb work.

[ollypenrice]

Holy poop batman!!!! That's a corker of an image!

Sooo, many faint galaxies, stars pin sharp, this is fitting for APOD

Edit to add: left and bottom side are a tad darker on my monitor, showing a bit of a line which might be crop-able

Thanks, you are right. A careless crop on my part. It shall be dealt with most severely!!

Olly

[Starblazer]

In fact, i'd say don't crop, just use the burn/dodge/heal tool in photoshop to even it out. Otherwise that ickle barred spiral at the bottom will just be sat on the edge, it's nicer with some room around it.

[lukebl]

Enviable stuff! Absolutely superbly done. I just love this little group of galaxies.

[ollypenrice]

SmugMug seems to black clip my images so here's one reset to allow for it. COmment invited.

On SGL I prefer the first one. On the French site, which has a pale blue background, the second one looks better. Very odd.

Olly

[JohnC64]

stunning image - a serious number of galaxies in one go.

[prokyon]

Hi Olly,

suberb image! So many galaxies and pretty star colours too. And your guiding is simply perfect!

Cheers

Werner

[Austin]

WOW! I'm blown away with this pic!! makes me wanna learn how to start imaging!! Beautiful!!

[Starblazer]

Still seeing that line top n bottom Olly mate >.<

[WayBig]

No wonder I can never see the quintet visually, they're a lot fainter than ngc7331.

Another fine image that makes it so tempting to book a stay at Les Granges!

[foundaplanet]

Another fabulous treat

Superb image. Thank you.

[Uranium235]

Gahhh! You beat me to it!

Superb image, superb graph!

[steppenwolf]

An absolute cracker of an image, Olly and a tracking trace to lust after - my EQ6 doesn't quite match that!!

[ollypenrice]

An absolute cracker of an image, Olly and a tracking trace to lust after - my EQ6 doesn't quite match that!!

...but it can be done! Chris Suddell has an EQ6 that does it all the time. Mine don't, though!

Olly

[daz]

That's a corker Olly!!

My EQ6 does better than 0.5, but not 0.05 - at least not yet!!

[inkpen]

That's a fabulous image! Thanks for posting it!

[RogerTheDodger]

Absolutely stunning image.

[PaulKummer]

"... never going to be an eye grabber ..."? Not sure about that. But it is definitely one to be studied and enjoyed slowly. Awesome.

It's nice to see that mount finally behaving itself - long may it last:)

Cheers

Paul

[Pavel]

Charming piece of skies. First minutes my eyes needed a guide.

Besides: an excellent work.

[Shibby]

Lovely image (as ever) Olly. With all that data... how does the high res look?

[peter shah]

beautifully processed Olly...very natural looking and great star colour....nothing looks pushed

[Anweniel]

Awesome picture, for some reason everytime I look it my eye is drawn to the little spiral at the bottom and not the primary target.. but maybe I'm just weird

[ollypenrice]

Awesome picture, for some reason everytime I look it my eye is drawn to the little spiral at the bottom and not the primary target.. but maybe I'm just weird

Not at all. A guy down the road has an RC with 9 metres of focal legth and a metre of aperture. Maybe I need to go down there with a bottle of wine...

Olly