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Markarian's Chain & A Plethora of Extra Galaxies

PhotoGav

By PhotoGav
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Today my life changed. I have finally given in... I have obtained a trial licence for PixInsight and this morning I downloaded the app to my Mac. I have joined 'the other side'. I am no longer a Photoshop only process person. If the truth be known - I haven't really used it for any of the processing. I only wanted to use one feature - the AnnotateImage script. I have to say, it's brilliant!

Anyway - on to the image.

Markarian's Chain, that much photographed string of galaxies in Virgo that forms part of the Virgo Cluster and includes two Messier objects, M84 and M86. I have always wanted to image an area of sky that is dense with galaxies and this image I think starts to fulfil that desire. As the annotated image shows, this is a galaxy rich bit of sky! I haven't counted how many galaxies there are in the image, but it's certainly quite a few. I wonder which the most distant is? Amazingly, the data for this project was (or should that be 'were'? - though the plural never sounds right to me!) gathered over six nights, all within one week. That is almost unheard of in this country these days.

L = 35 x 1200s
RGB = 12 x 600s each
TOTAL = 17 hours 40 minutes

Skywatcher Esprit 100ED, QSI 683-WSG8, Baader 1.25" filters & HEQ5 Pro.

MarkariansChain-LRGB-12-NoOverlay.thumb.png.5defc0cbf763d61084ae1b7831b97b13.png

 

MarkariansChain-LRGB-12-Overlay.thumb.png.636c2f14b0201e5c9cea4af47e9ec14a.png

 

I'm pretty happy with this image. I wasn't expecting much detail in the galaxies themselves, yet some of them have good structure visible - what a bonus! The data itself was peppered with satellite trails, as usual, but APP has done a perfect job of eliminating all of them. The one issue I had was the bright blob bottom left which was leaking into the image, along with a bit of a halo further to the right. This turned out to be the galaxy M87, Virgo A. I didn't realise it was so close until processing the data and perhaps I would have tried to include it had I known - though that would have been tricky with this field of view.

Anyway, I hope you like it and I look forward to comments and criticisms from you all.

Clear skies!

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DaveS

DaveS

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That's brilliant Gav.

I've bashed my head against this subject myself but was defeated by rubbish weather and rotten skies.

Looks like your skies are pretty good.

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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2 hours ago, groberts said:

Excellent picture Gav + many congratulations.  Markarian's Chain is a great subject and this image is well worth the considerable effort. :hello2: 

Thank you!

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

That's brilliant Gav.

I've bashed my head against this subject myself but was defeated by rubbish weather and rotten skies.

Looks like your skies are pretty good.

Thanks Dave. Yes, I am blessed with pretty decent skies, when the clouds clear...!

2 minutes ago, Barry-Wilson said:

Excellent image Gav - smooth background, constrained stars and natural processing.

Chapeau Sir :headbang:.

Thank you Barry. Having downloaded PI, I have been wondering whether you give masterclasses in how to use it?! It would makes sense to at least see if there are some features that would add to my processing arsenal.

 

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Thank you MeyGray.

I had a further play with the AnnotateImage thingy in PI and discovered that it can generate a text file of objects found. So, I did that and found that there are:

2 Messier Objects
8 IC Objects
14 NGC Objects
221 PGC Objects
TOTAL = 245 Objects

I haven't worked out which is the most distant and how far away it is yet though - any takers on that task?!!?

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Grimbles

Grimbles

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Great image Gav, and as you say really nice to see structure in some of the Galaxies.  I must have a crack at this myself, but not sure I would manage 17 hours of data, apart from a couple of nights ago clear nights have been a rarity.

Martin

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wimvb

wimvb

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10 minutes ago, PhotoGav said:

Thank you MeyGray.

I had a further play with the AnnotateImage thingy in PI and discovered that it can generate a text file of objects found. So, I did that and found that there are:

2 Messier Objects
8 IC Objects
14 NGC Objects
221 PGC Objects
TOTAL = 245 Objects

I haven't worked out which is the most distant and how far away it is yet though - any takers on that task?!!?

Lovely image, and welcome to the other side. I hadn't seen that feature of annotate yet, and never bothered to read the full imagesolver result.

Too bad it's so bright up here at night, or I would go for some of those galaxies myself.

Good luck with the toolbox that is PixInsight.

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Allinthehead

Allinthehead

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Very nice image Gav. I also have PI but only use it for a few processes. Dbe is excellent as is dark structure enhance in utilities. Scnr green is another i use. I also use APP and find the remove light pollution function is great. Whatever works for you i suppose.

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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24 minutes ago, Grimbles said:

Great image Gav, and as you say really nice to see structure in some of the Galaxies.  I must have a crack at this myself, but not sure I would manage 17 hours of data, apart from a couple of nights ago clear nights have been a rarity.

Martin

Thanks Martin. Indeed, clear nights are at a premium these days, but the joys of an observatory are that every opportunity can be maximised. Good luck. 

13 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Lovely image, and welcome to the other side. I hadn't seen that feature of annotate yet, and never bothered to read the full imagesolver result.

Too bad it's so bright up here at night, or I would go for some of those galaxies myself.

Good luck with the toolbox that is PixInsight.

Thanks Wim. I’m impressed with the annotate feature of PI and it worked straight away, I wasn’t expecting that! As for lack of dark skies up there with you on top of the globe, you’ll have to get into solar imaging, if you’re not already!

13 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

Very nice image Gav. I also have PI but only use it for a few processes. Dbe is excellent as is dark structure enhance in utilities. Scnr green is another i use. I also use APP and find the remove light pollution function is great. Whatever works for you i suppose.

Thanks Richard. Yes, SCNR is one of the first tools I will be investigating. I currently use the HLVG plug-in in Photoshop on a separate PC, which is a right hassle, so an equivalent on my Mac will be a luxury. No doubt a torrent of PI related question threads will be forthcoming...

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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15 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Well you learn something new every day. I had always thought people were manually circling targets and putting text info beside them!!

Oh yes, every day’s a school day! You have to solve the image first and then run the annotate image script. There are quite a few parameters you can configure to create the annotation overlay that you want. Excellent!

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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11 hours ago, Jkulin said:

Cool image Gave, and it looks like you are taming the Esprit as well, are you pleased with it?

Thank you. The Esprit is definitely delivering flat, sharp, contrasty and deep images, so, yes, I am pleased with it so far!

9 hours ago, bluedandelion said:

That is impressive work. Nicely processed!

Thank you!

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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1 hour ago, Steve 1962 said:

Excellent image Gav! Lovely and smooth with loads of detail in the galaxies.

Welcome to the dark side!

Steve

Thank you Steve.

In other news - I have been looking at data for the multitude of galaxies and find that there are some duplicate catalogue entries in my list, so the real total number of galaxies annotated in the image is 224. The most distant so far is IC 3280 (on the right of the image) at around 350 million light years!

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