NGC 891 galaxy

[Yoddha]

This weekend managed to free some time and decided to get a rest from the APT development by gathering some more photons At the end my primary hobby is astro-photography...

It is not very popular target - NGC891, a galaxy 30mly away in the Andromeda constellation, in region full of small fuzzies. Looking at it now I think that it would be better to use ISO 800. F/5.3 is quite fast and doesn't allow to show much of the stars colors... Looks like I can't get away from the 2h curse . No matter what I plan or do almost all my objects gather something around this limit... Next night I tried to image it again, but the sky was quite unstable and the image was very blurry, so decided not to lose time and try something more forgiving...

Here is it:

and a version with cropped main galaxy

The image details are in AstroBin, but in short they are:

MN190, Tak-EM200, 550D (modded), APT, PHD, PS, DSS

18x420s at ISO 1600 = 2h 6min

Thanks for the look!

[Gina]

Beautiful - great image - thank you Ivo

[laser_jock99]

Great image, mut look this galaxy up one day.

[morimarty]

Thats a lovely image yoddha, This as to be one of the skies best edge on galaxies along with NGC4565!

[Shibby]

Another great image Ivo! Your images are always very sharp, I wonder if this is down to your optics, seeing or guiding...?! Perhaps just skill

[Yoddha]

Thank you!

Lewis, my optics is a kind of middle range. The guiding is not perfect in all sessions, but I use only the good images and if there is need resize the image till the stars become round. I have to drive for every image, so I do that only when the sky is clear, usually this gives good seeing.

I also use the Local Contrast in Noel's Action pack or Enhance Dust Lanes from Annie's Tools. Also in the final phase if the image allows I'm applying Smart Sharpening

So the answer is littler bit from all and then am trying to compensate the defects with processing

[SJJ]

Thats a really nice image.

[Guest]

................ Looking at it now I think that it would be better to use ISO 800. F/5.3 is quite fast and doesn't allow to show much of the stars colors... Looks like I can't get away from the 2h curse .

Great stuff - I really like the galaxies in the background as well - gets you searching around for more :-)

On enhancing star colour I found the following process works really well in photoshop > create a duplicate layer > Magic wand set to whatever it takes to encapsulate the stars > soften the edges using the feather setting (a few pixels) > set the layer to Overlay > crank up the saturation to enhance the star colour > right click on the star layer and set the blend mode to "color" > flatten the image

I used this to great affect on the Beehive cluster last year - really relieved as it didn't look to great without it :-)

Again - well done!

David

[Yoddha]

Thank you SJJ and David!

David, I'll try your suggestions! Usually I use LAB mode for the stars layer, but this time it didn't work fine...

[todd8137]

Great detail

[Luis Campos]

Very, very nice image, even at 1600 ISO and 420 sec. subs there's no sign of noise, very clean, sharp focus and excellent detail on the galaxy.

Well done!

Luís

[JamesF]

Indeed. Lovely image.

James

[Yoddha]

Thank you Luis and James!

[Keiran]

Wow that is stunning, i bet youre pleased with that one

[Yoddha]

Thank you Todd8137 and Keiran!

Keiran, yes I'm very pleased with it

[JacobvonChorus]

Amazing.

Jacob