NGC2014 and Friends

[MeyGray3833]

Hello Stargazers,

I hope this post finds you all well!

Since building my observatory at the beginning of last year, it has been quite a trek to this point. I believe I have posted on or two other images saying that I am have a lot of equipment dramas, and boy, it has been quite a ride. Looks as though I am quite near the end of it all and one of the biggest dramas was a camera that appears to test well in the factory but just did not work properly at the scope. After borrowing two other identical cameras and perofrming exhaustive documented testing and showing that they work straight up on my gear, it convinced the manufacturer to replace my camera with a new one. The result is definitive, I now have a working system!!

So, after collecting 16 hrs worth of data and being starved of processing, I decided that with the temperatures here around 40 to 46 degrees Celcius, I was going to hide under the air conditioner and do some processing. Possibly could be a bit darker in the background, however: I am happy enough with the result. I hope you all find this object as interesting as I have.

Located at a distance of 160,000 light years away in the Large Magallenic Cloud is NGC 2014 and friends.

http://www.pbase.com/grahammeyer/image/154118709

Thanks for looking,

Graham.

[Kbramley]

Nice shot, well worth the effort. I bet having 50 deg delta on the QHY9 cooling is worth its money in those temperatures

Keith

[Mike Hawtin]

What a lovely subject, perhaps the background is a little obtrusive but overall it is pretty impressive, nicely done Graham.

Mike

[MeyGray3833]

Nice shot, well worth the effort. I bet having 50 deg delta on the QHY9 cooling is worth its money in those temperatures

 

Keith

Hi Keith, yes, good cooling here is a must and the QHY does a good job. I regularly run the camera at -20 C so I judge the temps and if it is still about 30 C after it has gone dark I don't bother as the seeing is generally a bit crappy as well.

 

 

What a lovely subject, perhaps the background is a little obtrusive but overall it is pretty impressive, nicely done Graham.

 

Mike

Thanks for your feedback, Mike. I was quite unsure how to present it as I found very few images on the net, especially wide field for reference. I think I will pull the background down a bit, it was on my mind anyway.

[RobH]

Hi Graham.

Lovely shot, and some great images on your pbase page too.....those of us up in the grey damp north are pretty envious of your skies!!

I do agree about the background, but that's a minor thing and easily fixed........great work

[ollypenrice]

I think that is truly outstanding. The darkest parts of your background are pretty dark, though most of the sky is light because (I would say) you've picked up faint signal. So I like it as is, I must say. 

Olly

[MeyGray3833]

Hi Graham.

Lovely shot, and some great images on your pbase page too.....those of us up in the grey damp north are pretty envious of your skies!!

I do agree about the background, but that's a minor thing and easily fixed........great work

Hi Rob, thank you for your comments regarding my images. I must admit that there are a few northern objects I am envious of so I guess it works both ways.

 

 

I think that is truly outstanding. The darkest parts of your background are pretty dark, though most of the sky is light because (I would say) you've picked up faint signal. So I like it as is, I must say. 

Olly

Hi Olly, thanks for popping in and having a look, I value your thoughts. I guess the proper way to phrase it would have been to lower the overall brightness of the image, and yes, there is a lot of faint wispy stuff in that area. Cheers!