M63 Tidal Streams.

[ollypenrice]

One of those head banging projects with Tom and, over the last two nights, our regular summertime guest Paul.

Also part of our project to find out if a small scope with small pixels can take on a big scope with big pixels. This was with the 5 inch TEC triplet. (I didn't say cheap scope! ) Camera is the ex-Jessun Atik 460, the lot riding on the recently acquired second Mesu. 

3 hours per colour in 10 min subs.

Initial luminance run was 36x15 minutes, but those streams were still elusive. Tom posted his rendition from this data.

Second luminance run of 14 x 30 minutes. Did the long subs go deeper? Not as convincingly as they do on our big Kodak chips but I think they had the edge. So this has 16 hours of luminance, plus 9 hours colour, so 25 hours all in. We do have a bit of Ha still to be played with.

For all that, the tidal streams are only just above the background sky level and took some levering out.

Click on the image to see a bigger one (button lower left.)

Olly

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR IMPROVED VERSION

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That is brilliant. It really shows there is a lot more to be seen than the "normal" view. I am currently involved in the SUNDIAL project in which we are investigating methods of going ever deeper (>29mag/square arcsec) trying to find ever more faint detail, like tidal tails and dwarf galaxies.  We'll be working on data from the Gran Telescopio Canarias (10.4m aperture), which makes a change from an 8" scope . It might be interesting to see if such techniques (once operational) would be able to tease out even more detail from this great shot

[al-alami]

That is an amazing shot, love the details and the depth.  Its so 3D it isn't funny.

Keep up the great work

[kilix]

I've never seen anything like this O_O

EDIT: I have a lot of studying to do now, thanks

[ollypenrice]

Thanks. The JPEG version is looking a bit 'angry' on here. I'll see what I can do. The TIFF is a lot smoother.

Olly

[wimvb]

7 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Thanks. The JPEG version is looking a bit 'angry' on here. I'll see what I can do. The TIFF is a lot smoother.

Olly

My thoughts exactly. While a great image, and I appreciate the craftsmanship, the posted version seems not quite up to your standard, Olly.

Otoh, GaBany spent 405 minutes on Lum with a 20" scope for his version of this target.

[swag72]

I love the middle part of the galaxy, that bit that we are used to seeing!!

I've looked at this many times over the past day and have finally managed to 'sort of' put my finger on whats bothering me (Probably not anyone else!.... so take my ideas with a pinch of salt!)........ I've looked at the GaBany image, as well as many others that are showing any kind of hint of tidal streams and far outer regions of nebulosity. What strikes me on this one is that it seems too 'thick' - While there's no doubt that it's there as shown by GaBany, I think that in this case it's ended up looking more solid than wispy.... if that makes sense. And to that end it's giving me something of a distorted view.

While this is indeed a tour de force in what it is showing and how it's been processed, I think that more of a hint than a smack in the chops would work better. But please that's only my thoughts and they are at odds with everyone else.... so what do I know?  

Please don't think me churlish Olly, it's hard to go against the grain and not appear like a negative Nancy! I'm just trying to put into words something that I have found difficult to pin down.

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, swag72 said:

I love the middle part of the galaxy, that bit that we are used to seeing!!

I've looked at this many times over the past day and have finally managed to 'sort of' put my finger on whats bothering me (Probably not anyone else!.... so take my ideas with a pinch of salt!)........ I've looked at the GaBany image, as well as many others that are showing any kind of hint of tidal streams and far outer regions of nebulosity. What strikes me on this one is that it seems too 'thick' - While there's no doubt that it's there as shown by GaBany, I think that in this case it's ended up looking more solid than wispy.... if that makes sense. And to that end it's giving me something of a distorted view.

While this is indeed a tour de force in what it is showing and how it's been processed, I think that more of a hint than a smack in the chops would work better. But please that's only my thoughts and they are at odds with everyone else.... so what do I know?  

Please don't think me churlish Olly, it's hard to go against the grain and not appear like a negative Nancy! I'm just trying to put into words something that I have found difficult to pin down.

I agree entirely and knew this all along really. I should've listened to my own instincts but I was getting boggle headed with this one. Thanks for the shove! Likewise to Wim.

Firstly I went back to the two datasets in lum, 14x30 and 36x15 and processed them separately to the same background level. When I pasted one onto the other in PS I ended up giving the long sub set a 60% weighting rather than the 33% I gave the linear set in Registar the first time. So that's more evidence in favour of long subs, very clearly. Also in favour of weighting by eye rather than calculation. (Another instinct I'd ignored this time.)  I then went a bit less gung-ho on the stretch and finally went back and forth posting/adjusting a net version till it looked better. The JPEG on the net is still not as good as on the PC but I've given up on that!

To follow, the antidote to the 25 hour image: three minutes on Albireio!!! 

Olly

[swag72]

I much prefer this version Olly - It's more wispy and more natural looking to my eye. Now there's more of a tonal range from the brighter middle to the outer tidal regions, it slowly dissipates into the background as opposed to being a more sudden drop off. All the information is still there, but the more subtle hint works much better.

Oh yes, this gets a thumbs up from me

[Allinthehead]

Love the second version beautiful image.

[toxic]

wow thats great and o like the loop at the top left of the galaxy top notch

[PatrickGilliland]

That last version is spot on Olly, delicate but very real tidal tails, the rest of the image is great too BTW