Copeland's Septet with LodestarLive

[Martin Meredith]

Just a very short session last night (about 1 hour), all of it focused on Copeland's Septet in Leo. (Paul, I have lots of darks and lights to send you -- took the dog for a walk half way through and left it capturing  ). This was with a fair bit of LP from street lights reflected off the white of the Andalucian buildings. 

Copeland's Septet is mentioned in Phil Harrington's Cosmic Challenge book as one for 'monster scopes' -- visually, that is. The brightest is mag 13.7 and the faintest 15.2 (there are fainter galaxies in the field too).

The group fits in a 5' field. The largest (NGC 3753 is 1.7' x 0.5' and the smallest (NGC 3745) just 0.4' x 0.2'. For my setup (3.5" or about 0.06' per pixel) this corresponds to just over 6 x 3 pixels -- about right if you look at the inset image.

Again, I really wasn't expecting a lot but its worth a try as always. I suppose I just have to get used to it, but the Lodestar pulled them out easily in 60s, even showing morphological details for some of them. Apologies for the mislabelling as a sextet...

and blown up

Now I'd like to see them through the eyepiece!

Cheers

Martin

[NickK]

Nice.

Just thinking about my AP attempts at small fuzzes - it's possible to get some good definition with drizzle on the stacking btw. 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice one. Not often seen (and way beyond my scope)

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Nick. Just to clarify, this is a single 60s sub, no stacking.

I may give it a go with drizzle in Nebulosity though...

Following your musings on the other thread with interest -- keep them coming 

Martin

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Michael. It's strange, but getting into sensor-assisted viewing has really whetted my appetite to see some of these objects conventionally too. At least I've proved to myself that they really exist 

Martin

[NickK]

Thanks Nick. Just to clarify, this is a single 60s sub, no stacking.

I may give it a go with drizzle in Nebulosity though...

Following your musings on the other thread with interest -- keep them coming 

Martin

With the sensitivity you should be able to pick out more detail with the additional exposures.

Additionally - and this makes illogical sense - you can bin 2x2 to give more sensitivity and up the number of drizzled exposures… the result is the same or more detail with more sensitivity.. just thinking you could probably get more detail and go deeper..

Aladin gives a great DSS shot of this cluster too

[Paul81]

Great stuff as always Martin! I wonder what size scope would be required to see these? I should imagine that and super dark skies!

Any data you have available is massively appreciated! The more I have the more I can test and iron out kinks in the algorithms. These kind of things are best tested out by a diverse range of different targets and conditions so I can run the whole lot in a test harness and see what breaks what, and when modifying bits (try to) ensure I don't break anything elsewhere! You have to love image processing...

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Paul. Harrington's book defines 'monster' as 15" and above and I think good seeing would be required.

Having said that, I was looking at (well, Lodestarring) another Hickson(?) group last night, the Seyfert Sextet in Serpens -- though actually there are only 5 in the group, the 6th being at 4 times the distance. These are much closer to each other. You can see 3 of them making an equilateral triangle in the centre of this image (actually its the brighter triangle sitting above a much fainter one). They're at mags 13.5, 14.0 and 13.9 from L to R. The other two are at 15.3 and 15.6 and really closely-embedded. More resolution may be needed for this one. One of you guys with larger apertures should give it a go!

One of the things I like about this field is the mag 13.9 spiral (UGC10127) visible sandwiched between two stars at the bottom left.

Martin

[nytecam]

My Copeland's Septet from early this morning

[nytecam]

Here's an annotated enlarged crop of Cope's 7 in 30s via Lodestar-Mx2

[HiloDon]

Impressive results, Martin and Nytecam. You got me interested in this now. I'm going to try to find the septet tonight. I'll let you know if I have any success.

[HiloDon]

Impressive results, Martin and Nytecam. You got me interested in this now. I'm going to try to find the septet tonight. I'll let you know if I have any success.

Well, it took me a few weeks waiting for the right conditions, but I finally got to see the Septet with my Lodestar X2. 30s single exposure with my SW100ed. Used Lodestar Live with a dark frame. It was a stored dark frame, and I should have used a new one. Much thanks to Martin and Nytecam for pointing out the Septet and also to Paul for his LL program. I am having a great time with the Lodestar X2 and Paul's s/w. Hope SX makes a color version soon. Here's a captured image:

[Martin Meredith]

That's a great shot! You're seeing lots of structure there. I can see the benefits of the ED and the extra aperture.

There's plenty more Hickson groups to look at too!

Martin

[HiloDon]

Thanks, Martin. You have me hooked on these Hickson groups now. Here's a good link to the basic info on them.

http://www.deep-sky.co.uk/observing/galaxies/hickson.htm