Leo Triples - more data from last night

[gorann]

Last night it finally cleared for a few hours so I could add 30 more subs (=2 hours) to my previous hour of these galaxies. Starting to look rather nice I think, at least for being DSLR.

Acquisition details: ES 5" apo running at native f/7.5 on EQ8 with my trusted Canon 60Da at ISO 1600. Now totally 45 x 4 min = 3 hours. About 0°C in the air and SQM showing 21.3 (straight up but the triplets were rather close to the horizon so I had some gradient issues)

Comments and suggestions most welcome as always.

By the way, I have a question. On good nights, like last night, I get PHD2 guiding around 0.5" RSM for both RA and Dec (using a SW80/400 with QHY5-IImono firmly clamped on the scope). Is that good or bad? I have Dec backlash in the EQ8 (seems to create a problem now and then but probably not last night) and I have to admit that I have not bothered with PEC training.

[simmo39]

Nice image!

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice work Goran, well presented.  Paddy

[ollypenrice]

Super. The elusive tail is clear as a bell without looking over processed. The stars are small and tight.

You have the tail incredibly well (and the tidal extensions of M66) but the image doesn't go as deep in terms of the little faint fuzzies which lie in the field. (Discuss!)

Olly

[gorann]

3 hours ago, simmo39 said:

Nice image!

 

21 minutes ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Nice work Goran, well presented.  Paddy

 

8 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Super. The elusive tail is clear as a bell without looking over processed. The stars are small and tight.

You have the tail incredibly well (and the tidal extensions of M66) but the image doesn't go as deep in terms of the little faint fuzzies which lie in the field. (Discuss!)

Olly

 

2 hours ago, laudropb said:

Very nice image.

Thank you all!

Olly, being a 3 h DSLR image I had to fight a bit with the red-green background noise, which inevitable may have suppressed a few faint fuzzies (sorry all of you little green men living there) - but I will help them out as soon as I get more data.

[ollypenrice]

2 minutes ago, gorann said:

 

 

 

Thank you all!

Olly, being a 3 h DSLR image I had to fight a bit with the red-green background noise, which inevitable may have suppressed a few faint fuzzies (sorry all of you little green men living there) - but I will help them out as soon as I get more data.

Look out for a bunch of quasars near the Hamburger galaxy...

Olly

[gorann]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Look out for a bunch of quasars near the Hamburger galaxy...

Olly

I will try to give the quasarians a home in my next version, just need the data.

[wimvb]

Great image, Göran. Thete is a clear tidal tail coming from the galaxy.

Taking out the colour mottle is quite easy, actually. Just download the trial version of PixInsight and apply MMT to chrominance. Use a mask to protect the target and stars.

I might go after this target myself, but it's a bit low and I have a fair amount of light pollution. I doubt that I would be able to capture the tail.

Thanks for sharing

[gorann]

12 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Look out for a bunch of quasars near the Hamburger galaxy...

Olly

 

9 hours ago, wimvb said:

Great image, Göran. Thete is a clear tidal tail coming from the galaxy.

Taking out the colour mottle is quite easy, actually. Just download the trial version of PixInsight and apply MMT to chrominance. Use a mask to protect the target and stars.

I might go after this target myself, but it's a bit low and I have a fair amount of light pollution. I doubt that I would be able to capture the tail.

Thanks for sharing

Tack Wim! I may have a look at PI - it is just that I hate starting with a new program spending hours or days just figuring out the most basic things. But as you say I could use it for just some selective tasks. By the way, Sunday night looks good up here!

Olly! I found the quasars! I spent this morning bringing out as much faint stuff as I can get out of the data (at the cost of a more noisy background), and there they were - the quasars! I could see at least five of them (admittedly they are very faint). I used this site to pick them out:

http://www.waid-observatory.com/ngc3628-2016-03-31-quasars.html

So, here is the image with as much faint stuff as possible and an inverted close up of the Hamburger and its quasars

[ollypenrice]

That's great!

Olly

[gorann]

3 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

That's great!

Olly

Yes, this is amazing. I would not expect that a 5" scope could pick up light from 10 000 000 000 years ago. These are between 4 and 10 Giga light years away (according to that site I used to find them). The one to the right of the galaxy, which stands out rather clearly, is 10 Giga ly away!

[frugal]

17 hours ago, gorann said:

By the way, I have a question. On good nights, like last night, I get PHD2 guiding around 0.5" RSM for both RA and Dec (using a SW80/400 with QHY5-IImono firmly clamped on the scope). Is that good or bad? I have Dec backlash in the EQ8 (seems to create a problem now and then but probably not last night) and I have to admit that I have not bothered with PEC training.

 

Beautiful image. The details are amazingly crisp.

With regards to PHD2 guiding: I have been getting an average of 0.85" RMS error for the past couple of nights guiding with my AZ-EQ6 GT. This is with polar alignment accurate to about 1' accuracy according to PHD.

[wimvb]

10 minutes ago, gorann said:

Yes, this is amazing. I would not expect that a 5" scope could pick up light from 10 000 000 000 years ago. These are between 4 and 10 Giga light years away (according to that site I used to find them). The one to the right of the galaxy, which stands out rather clearly, is 10 Giga ly away!

 

38 minutes ago, gorann said:

 

Tack Wim! I may have a look at PI - it is just that I hate starting with a new program spending hours or days just figuring out the most basic things. But as you say I could use it for just some selective tasks. By the way, Sunday night looks good up here!

Hours, days, 10^10 years. Time certainly is relative.

You will find that the time you spend learning PixInsight, will be time well spent. And given the number of cloudy nights, what else to do but reprocess data?

Yep, sunday seems to be the night to look forward to.

Have fun.

[bob-c]

a lovely image.

                  bob.

[gorann]

6 hours ago, frugal said:

Beautiful image. The details are amazingly crisp.

With regards to PHD2 guiding: I have been getting an average of 0.85" RMS error for the past couple of nights guiding with my AZ-EQ6 GT. This is with polar alignment accurate to about 1' accuracy according to PHD.

 

6 hours ago, wimvb said:

 

Hours, days, 10^10 years. Time certainly is relative.

You will find that the time you spend learning PixInsight, will be time well spent. And given the number of cloudy nights, what else to do but reprocess data?

Yep, sunday seems to be the night to look forward to.

Have fun.

 

5 hours ago, bob-c said:

a lovely image.

                  bob.

Thank you very much Frugal and Bob, and Wim I sent PI a message to get the trial download approval.

[Rodd]

And with a DSLR--not at F2 or F3 or F4 but at F7.5!!--Olly--my world is crumbling!  This image is anmazing1

Rodd

[wimvb]

24 minutes ago, Rodd said:

And with a DSLR--not at F2 or F3 or F4 but at F7.5!!--Olly--my world is crumbling!  This image is anmazing1

Rodd

I don't think it's the gear. I think it's the environment. Göran is in an area with very little light pollution. Sweden would be heaven for AP, if it weren't for the clouds. We generally get them one day night after the UK.

[gorann]

57 minutes ago, Rodd said:

And with a DSLR--not at F2 or F3 or F4 but at F7.5!!--Olly--my world is crumbling!  This image is anmazing1

Rodd

 

28 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I don't think it's the gear. I think it's the environment. Göran is in an area with very little light pollution. Sweden would be heaven for AP, if it weren't for the clouds. We generally get them one day night after the UK.

Thanks Rodd!

I think Wim has a point. Not only is the sky in rural Sweden rather dark (SQM showed 21.3) but I only had to give my closest neighbor Maria, 100 m away, a call and she turned off all her outdoor lights, as always. Swedes are nice people.

[frugal]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

I don't think it's the gear. I think it's the environment. Göran is in an area with very little light pollution. Sweden would be heaven for AP, if it weren't for the clouds. We generally get them one day night after the UK.

My beloved wife took me to North Sweden to see the Northern lights for my birthday, including a night in a cabin by a lake a good 20 miles from the next human being. Only trouble was that all of the northen lights and stars were hidden behind a thick layer of cloud the entire week ;(  On the other hand: Dog Sledding OMG

[gorann]

3 hours ago, frugal said:

My beloved wife took me to North Sweden to see the Northern lights for my birthday, including a night in a cabin by a lake a good 20 miles from the next human being. Only trouble was that all of the northen lights and stars were hidden behind a thick layer of cloud the entire week ;(  On the other hand: Dog Sledding OMG

wifes and Northern light are amazing, but  where I am at 60° North I rarely, if ever, see the Northern lights (they would surely mess up imaging). Even if I am at a higher latitude than anything in Great Britain, I am still in the southern 1/3 of the country.

[wimvb]

5 hours ago, gorann said:

 

Thanks Rodd!

I think Wim has a point. Not only is the sky in rural Sweden rather dark (SQM showed 21.3) but I only had to give my closest neighbor Maria, 100 m away, a call and she turned off all her outdoor lights, as always. Swedes are nice people.

I, on the other hand, live in the suburbs of Stockholm. My nearest light polluter is a streetlamp right across the street (< 20 m from my scope). The streetlamp is on all night. Even if I'd call the authorities, they wouldn't turn it off. Swedes are nice people, as long as they are not officials.

Northern lights can be spectacular in massive amounts. Unfortunately I have had my imaging sessions ruined on more than one occasion due to very faint Aurora. Not enough to see, but too much to do AP.

[gorann]

Wim, there is some less perfectly legal way to turn out a street lamp - and I am sure it would take eons for them to find out and fix.

I was quite exited for tonight - but right now there are some high clouds. Please go away!!

[wimvb]

There are several ways. But I'm working on a long term VERY legal solution that requires some investment.

By now the high clouds have reached me too. Hopefully some subs that are usable.