Abell 2199 - 105 galaxies and a few quasars

[Datalord]

This is Abell 2199, a galaxy cluster 4-500 million light years away. This cluster is part of the Hercules Supercluster.

The annotated image shows the myriad of galaxies in this cluster. In this image I managed to capture 105 galaxies in just one frame, which is pretty decent with my gear.

In the center of A2199 is the galaxy NGC 6166, which is a fascinating beast in multiple ways. It is a supermassive galaxy, which supposedly contains smaller galaxies within its massive width. You can see the smaller galaxy cores in it.

It contains the most globular clusters of any known galaxy, up to 39,000 of them, with each cluster itself containing hundreds of thousands of stars. For comparison, our milky way has about 170. It has a supermassive black hole of about 30 billion solar masses and the galaxy is one of the most luminous in terms of x-ray emissions. Our Milky Way is bigger than most galaxies, but this thing dwarfs it. Finally, this crazy thing has blueshift, so it is coming closer to us, which is mindbogling at this distance.

Beyond the cluster, in this image, there are galaxies much farther away:
Here you see 2 galaxies at a distance of 2.9 billion light years

Here you have 3 galaxies at 4.4 and 4.6 billion light years

Here you have my farthest imaged galaxy. It is special, because even at this distance it is blue. It was discovered by the GALEX UV space telescope and it is a whole galaxy so hot and bright it shines in ultra violet. It's hard to fathom what must be going on there. In comparison, the red dot below it is another galaxy "only" 470 million light years away.

No cluster image would be complete without some distant quasars. These photon cannons in the final image sent their light out 6.5 and 9.4 billion years ago. And I caught them with my little telescope here on planet Earth as seen in the final image.

Finally, capturing details.

[souls33k3r]

My goodness man, this has got to be one of my favourite images with such beautiful writeup. Amazing capture matey. 

What FL did you capture this image with? 

[Datalord]

Just now, souls33k3r said:

My goodness man, this has got to be one of my favourite images with such beautiful writeup. Amazing capture matey. 

What FL did you capture this image with? 

Thank you very much!

It's 2365mm FL on the CFF scope.

[geeklee]

Great write up to go along with the capture!

[Craig a]

Wow that’s just incredible! It’s beautifully smooth, excellent 

[StargeezerTim]

Fantastic image and write up!

[old_eyes]

Beautiful image. And such a lot of colour information as well. I struggle to get much colour in my galaxy cluster images. My wife prefers the local big blowsy nebulae, but I like these subtle deep time images. Harder to read, but with a much better story to tell. And thanks for the annotations. I really brings it to life.

[Datalord]

38 minutes ago, old_eyes said:

Beautiful image. And such a lot of colour information as well. I struggle to get much colour in my galaxy cluster images. My wife prefers the local big blowsy nebulae, but I like these subtle deep time images. Harder to read, but with a much better story to tell. And thanks for the annotations. I really brings it to life.

Thank you!

There's a lot more colour in these images than what I got with my old CMOS setup. But I also use a ton of saturation and colour boosting in PixInsight. Essentially I do a small boost of colours in liniar, then run the Repaired HSV Separation script before stretching. And then more colour boosting in the end in PS.

[old_eyes]

Never used the Repair HSV Separation script. I will have to give it a go! So many different tools and options in PI. It is almost overwhelming. My list of things to try will keep me occupied in the summer months when imaging is impossible.

[symmetal]

Great image and write-up along with it. I took images of Abell 1656 Coma Cluster over the last few days using an ASI071 OSC APS-C sensor and 360mm ZS61 scope just to see what comes out as there weren't any suitable wide field OSC targets around at the time. It looks promising with a quick process but I don't think it'll match yours. 😀

Alan

[Waddensky]

What a wonderful, deep picture and the annotated background information is incredibly interesting. Thanks for sharing!!

[geoflewis]

Not much going on there then...... 😁 Seriously that is a cracking image and equally superb narrative - brilliant...!!

[Datalord]

3 hours ago, symmetal said:

Great image and write-up along with it. I took images of Abell 1656 Coma Cluster over the last few days using an ASI071 OSC APS-C sensor and 360mm ZS61 scope just to see what comes out as there weren't any suitable wide field OSC targets around at the time. It looks promising with a quick process but I don't think it'll match yours. 😀

Alan

Thanks!

The beauty of groups of galaxies is that they are at all distances, so you'll be able to find some that match your focal length, I'm sure. Good luck with it!