Centaurus A Galaxy

[MarsG76]

Hi all,

I had a bit of luck with weather so after the little one is asleep, I was able to sneak a few imaging nights. The great thing about permanent setups is that from night to night, imaging can be resumed within minutes with saved than recalled coordinates.

 

Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus.

 

At 13 million LY, NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth and is also the fifth-brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target.

 

The galaxy is only visible from below very low northern latitudes but is best seen or imaged from the southern hemisphere.

 

This image was taken with a NexStar 8SE 8" SCT at 2032mm focal length, PHD2 autoguided CGEM using a astronomy modded Canon 40D DSLR controlled by APT.

 

It consists of 40 x 300 sec, 30 x 600 sec and 20 x 900 sec ISO800 subs.

 

Clear Skies.

[Sunshine]

WOW thats really awesome, can't wait to get my feet wet in AP this summer!

[Ronclarke]

Great image, pity we can't see it from the UK!! 

[Leveye]

Outstanding. Looks like it's exploding. Like the editing.

[carastro]

Lovely image, I love this target, but its in the wrong hemisphere for me. 

Carole 

[cfpendock]

For such a long focal length that is stunning.

Chris

[MarsG76]

On 21 March 2018 at 03:22, Sunshine said:

WOW thats really awesome, can't wait to get my feet wet in AP this summer!

Be careful... It's both frustrating and addictive... You'll start to despise clouds... Haha

in all seriousness.. It's a great hobby.. Problem solving with nice visual rewards... Looking forward to seeing your images.

[MarsG76]

On 21 March 2018 at 04:02, Ronclarke said:

Great image, pity we can't see it from the UK!! 

There's objects that you're enjoying up there tho...

[MarsG76]

On 21 March 2018 at 05:27, carastro said:

Lovely image, I love this target, but its in the wrong hemisphere for me. 

Carole 

I know what you mean... I'd love to see and image M51 and M82... 

[MarsG76]

On 21 March 2018 at 05:37, cfpendock said:

For such a long focal length that is stunning.

Chris

Thanks, I'm still wondering whether imaging at 2032mm reveals any more detail than imaging via a FR at 1280mm which would half the imaging time needed for the same object sub brightness.

[Ruud]

It's an amazing result. Detail and colours are wonderful!

[cfpendock]

1 hour ago, MarsG76 said:

I'm still wondering whether imaging at 2032mm reveals any more detail than imaging via a FR at 1280mm which would half the imaging time needed for the same object sub brightness.

Not sure about that, but I won't argue.  I often image smaller stuff at 2800mm, but even with binned subs there is no way that the seeing where I live is good enough to show really fine detail.  I have also noted that some character from the south of France who regularly posts on this forum seems to get at least as much detail as me when using his TEC140, which is less than half the focal length.  I suppose it's just possible he could have more expertise......

Chris

[MarsG76]

4 minutes ago, cfpendock said:

Not sure about that, but I won't argue.  I often image smaller stuff at 2800mm, but even with binned subs there is no way that the seeing where I live is good enough to show really fine detail.  I have also noted that some character from the south of France who regularly posts on this forum seems to get at least as much detail as me when using his TEC140, which is less than half the focal length.  I suppose it's just possible he could have more expertise......

Chris

Or clearer skies... using my kit and seeing, I think that most nights, seeing and guiding accuracy will be between 0.5"-0.8", the rare exceptional nights I did get 0.38" RMS guiding....but still at those levels, a higher focal length than say 1500mm will not reveal any more detail. 

[tooth_dr]

Thats one of the best I've seen you produce, simply stunning, and from a 40d, I'll get there some day

[MarsG76]

16 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Thats one of the best I've seen you produce, simply stunning, and from a 40d, I'll get there some day

Thank you... practice... DSLRs are very capable of some good AP... especially modded... the biggest factor to decent images are polar alignment, Tracking accurately and of course, sky conditions...

Surely a CCD would be more sensitive and a higher res due to cooling and being BW, but my next project is to cool the 40D... I wonder what difference that will make.

 

[Droogie 2001]

Very nice. Maybe I should dust off my 8SE? Looks like you have managed to really work that tube