NGC 7331 & Stephan's Quintet

[johnrt]

Hello everyone!

After a summer break from galaxy imaging, it was back to doing what I enjoy most in August! There were some fantastic clear nights throughout the month, and even though I missed about half of them due to working evenings, I still managed to rack up 16 hours on this target. I am particularly happy to have captured the tidal arms in the Quintet and a good deal of the outer halo of NGC 7331, which is also very bright down to the core and needed layer masking to control the very brightest parts while stretching.

I also enjoyed quite a few of Ken Crawford's processing tutorial presentations recently, which gave me a couple of ideas to try out some new techniques, which turned out to be very useful, I would recommend them if you haven't watched them through http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Presentations.html especially the ones on depth of field and digging out the detail.

Imaged with all my usual bits of metal tube and mirrors and an Atik 460ex screwed in the back. capture was in SGPro, and image calibration and construction in Pixinsight. Processing completed in CS5.

As ever I hope you like,

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice indeed!

[adamphillips]

i love that image. the field of view is perfect. did you crop it to that?

7331 is one of my favorite galaxies. your color looks great.

[johnrt]

6 minutes ago, adamphillips said:

i love that image. the field of view is perfect. did you crop it to that?

7331 is one of my favorite galaxies. your color looks great.

Thank you Michael and Adam, it is just cropped to remove the misalignment between filters around the edges, so maybe less than 5%? And so a happy coincidence my RC & 460ex just happens to produce the almost ideal FOV to capture both 7331 & the Quintet!

[MARS1960]

That is really very very nice, great job.

[toxic]

ooh great image john 

[Barry-Wilson]

You've really teased out fine galactic detail John without giving the image the 'pushed-too-far' look.  Sublime.

[Uranium235]

Great image John! Just been watching the tutorials too, I might be temped to take another look at deconvolution (I've never managed to get it to work!). Might be interesting to see if it brings anything different than high pass to the table.

[johnrt]

Thank you guys, much appreciated! The presentations really are worth a watch, I think there's something in there for everyone. 

[Coco]

Excellent result, very nice indeed 

 

[ollypenrice]

That is ridiculously good! If someone said it came from a 20 inch Plane Wave you'd think it perfectly credible. Detail and colour are pure top class.

Olly

[RichLD]

Just beautiful.

[Paul73]

Like wot Olly says. I've not seen better!

This has been a visual bug bear of mine. NHC 7331 is nice and bright, almost rectangular in appearance.

The quintet has so far eluded me.......

Paul

[PatrickGilliland]

Very nice John - FoV is perfect and processing is very complimentary to the target.  Top drawer all round i say.

Paddy

[johnrt]

You're all much too kind with your comments, thank you very much

[theo]

NGC7331 is one of my favourite galaxies and captured with Stephan's Quintet like this makes for a seriously beautiful image. Love the delicate processing also John.

Pete

[astroman001]

Superb image, love the colours, such a rich area for galaxies. Great processing.

Peter

[gnomus]

Really nicely done.  

[Adriano]

Beautiful image.

[ollypenrice]

I'd just like to add that the processing is indeed delicate but it also throws a punch like 'enry's 'ammer!' The combination of delicacy and confidence is what puts this in the big-big-big league. 

Olly

[RSM]

Cracking image John, comments already posted sum things up nicely. Richard. 

[johnrt]

17 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I'd just like to add that the processing is indeed delicate but it also throws a punch like 'enry's 'ammer!' The combination of delicacy and confidence is what puts this in the big-big-big league. 

Olly

 

I think when people get in to this lark the one thing almost everyone overlooks is the time, effort and learning they need to put in to the processing, the image capture bit with all the astronomy equipment is the easy and quick bit. I've been at this for 6 years now, and in terms of an image processor I'd still class myself as a learner!

[StargeezerTim]

That is a special image...

[ollypenrice]

49 minutes ago, johnrt said:

 

I think when people get in to this lark the one thing almost everyone overlooks is the time, effort and learning they need to put in to the processing, the image capture bit with all the astronomy equipment is the easy and quick bit. I've been at this for 6 years now, and in terms of an image processor I'd still class myself as a learner!

So true. The data gathering is a standard procedure which doesn't change but processing is a combination of craft and art which offers infintite possibilities for improvement.

Olly

[johnrt]

4 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

So true. The data gathering is a standard procedure which doesn't change but processing is a combination of craft and art which offers infintite possibilities for improvement.

Olly

And equally it makes me wonder Olly how many imagers quit not because they can't capture enough, or good enough data, but just because they can't process it to a satisfactory (to them) standard?

I know of a few that have thrown in the towel blaming their local sky conditions, camera or telescope, when (I have thought) the actual issue is the level of processing.