Abell 2151 (Hercules Galaxy Cluster)

[Martin Meredith]

I've become very fond of galaxy clusters since acquiring the Lodestar-C/Live combo so with Hercules well placed here's a 60s attempt at Abell 2151in the 80mm f/6 between the clouds last night. It's not the best as I forgot to re-level the mount, so there's some trailing.

This is the SDSS image of the same region (nice to see its not just me that gets blown out stars ;-)

Here's the result of putting it through Astrometry.net. The field is so full of galaxies that the labelling doesn't really help much in this case (besides, it has missed some   )

 

I've been monitoring the faintest objects for a while and reckon with this scope I can get to around mag 16, perhaps a little more, in the village with some LP. For this kind of object the new SX mono Lodestar would be ideal!

Thanks for looking

Martin

[nytecam]

Hi Martin - very nice image - here's my response from last night via 30cm SCT + Lodestar-Mx2 + LodestarLive in 45 sec with annotated negative version too via Sloan DSS reference 

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks. Always good to see the same objects through different setups.

BTW have your images lost something in compression? The artefacts look like jpeg rather than camera noise...

Martin

[nytecam]

Thanks. Always good to see the same objects through different setups.

BTW have your images lost something in compression? The artefacts look like jpeg rather than camera noise...

Martin

May be. I use a high level of jpg compression but have raised it recently. Of course enlarged and successive crops will suffer:-)

[Astrogate]

nytecam, on 26 May 2014 - 3:57 PM, said:

Hi Martin - very nice image - here's my response from last night via 30cm SCT + Lodestar-Mx2 + LodestarLive in 45 sec with annotated negative version too via Sloan DSS reference 

Here is a prime example of just stacking two image on the fly will make a big difference in pulling out these very faint galaxies more through the background noise.

Chris A

Astrogate

[kirkster501]

Incredible stuff guys!  I love that object area.  If it ever clears this summer in the UK that is my next imaging project.

[nytecam]

Thanks Kirkster for your interest - good luck with your project