Markarian's Chain against a sea of galaxies

[geeklee]

It's that time of year where we're seeing this pop up a lot.  I think this will be the last broadband image until later in the year. 

Just 19 x 300s Lum and 6 x 300s each of R, G and B on the last clear night recently.  Taken with my RedCat and an Atik 460EX.  

The lack of data is showing at full resolution (e.g. M86) but I've left it anyway.  I'm loving M88 and some of the smaller NGC galaxies.

Captured with Voyager, calibrated & stacked in APP and processed in PixInsight.

Thanks for looking!

@Rob63 showed a similar markup to the one below in another thread but here's the main galaxies labelled up anyway - keep scrolling down though!

But it's this one that is just amazing.  I was blown away I had so many of PGC circles with something very very faint in them - with ~3 hours!!

Edited April 21, 2021 by geeklee

[Adreneline]

That is just so revealing Lee - makes you think and reflect - exactly what it should do.

Does PI tell you how many PGC's it has identified?

Thanks for sharing.

Adrian

Edited April 20, 2021 by Adreneline
Clarification

[geeklee]

6 hours ago, Adreneline said:

That is just so revealing Lee - makes you think and reflect - exactly what it should do.

Absolutely.  Even in the main image, it's hard to focus on everything that's in the background that might be another galaxy, but the annotated image helps enormously.

6 hours ago, Adreneline said:

Does PI tell you how many PGC's it has identified?

It appears to - via the Process Console output during rendering.  The numbers have a slight mismatch further down so I'm unsure which is accurate.  Here's a quick couple of snippets from the console:

There are some enormous catalogues available if you want to utilise additional disk space!

[scotty38]

Wonderful image and fascinating information. I took some more of this area last night so will try and have PI give me some of this info... Always something new to learn 🙂

[geeklee]

25 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I took some more of this area last night so will try and have PI give me some of this info... Always something new to learn 🙂

Thanks @scotty38  Sounds good, I'll keep an eye out for your image 👍

For the basics - If you've not used the annotation stuff before - the final image needs solved first with the ImageSolver script (under Scripts | Image Analysis).  I tend to use the Search and use an object in the image, then fill out the focal distance and pixel size. I'm not always accurate with the date.  example:

Once solved, go to Scripts | Render and choose AnnotateImage.

You'll have some catalogues already selected and can add more with the "+".  Some may need additional data downloaded.

Have a play about with how you want it to look and then go.  If it's a final image you'll likely want to make sure "Apply STF before annotation" is unchecked.  You can also change font sizes and colours of the different catalogues.  

Apologies if you knew all this already!

Edited April 20, 2021 by geeklee

[Paul M]

Spectacular! Loving the full size image too. I wouldn't worry too much about the pixel peepers. They'd be missing the bigger picture, literally

The galaxy grouping at bottom center is an image within an image!

[geeklee]

15 minutes ago, Paul M said:

The galaxy grouping at bottom center is an image within an image!

Thanks Paul.  Good catch, it's a great area to look at too.  There's a lovely little galaxy in the middle top (ish) of that group that has a tiny bit of detail.  So little, yet so much  

Edited April 20, 2021 by geeklee

[scotty38]

2 hours ago, geeklee said:

Thanks @scotty38  Sounds good, I'll keep an eye out for your image 👍

For the basics - If you've not used the annotation stuff before - the final image needs solved first with the ImageSolver script (under Scripts | Image Analysis).  I tend to use the Search and use an object in the image, then fill out the focal distance and pixel size. I'm not always accurate with the date.  example:

Once solved, go to Scripts | Render and choose AnnotateImage.

You'll have some catalogues already selected and can add more with the "+".  Some may need additional data downloaded.

Have a play about with how you want it to look and then go.  If it's a final image you'll likely want to make sure "Apply STF before annotation" is unchecked.  You can also change font sizes and colours of the different catalogues.  

Apologies if you knew all this already!

Thanks for that and really appreciate it and nope I knew none of it so it's all new to me. I shall have a play....

[scotty38]

Yay it works 🙂 Obviously not as grand as yours and just used a "test" image to see what happened.....

 

[wimvb]

Great image. Fyi, the PI annotatw script can save the list of objects in a text file. You can also limit the magnitude span of pgc objects, so you can exclude empty circles.

[tooth_dr]

Class job, really great FOV.

[Stuf1978]

Nicely done 👍

[geeklee]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

Fyi, the PI annotatw script can save the list of objects in a text file. You can also limit the magnitude span of pgc objects, so you can exclude empty circles.

Thanks Wim.  I was sure I'd read this about the limiting magnitude (with NGC catalogue), but couldn't find it within the Script for either.  I'll go and read the documentation a bit closer. 

Edited April 21, 2021 by geeklee

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Very nice, and thanks for the tips on annotation. I may have to consider PixInsight at some point.

[wimvb]

6 hours ago, geeklee said:

Thanks Wim.  I was sure I'd read this about the limiting magnitude (with NGC catalogue), but couldn't find it within the Script for either.  I'll go and read the documentation a bit closer. 

It is available for the SDSS R9 catalogue, but not for PGC.

[mackiedlm]

That is just fantastic. Really makes you stop and think about what you are looking at.

[Mr Spock]

Lovely image. So many galaxies!

[Neo_uk]

Lovely image Lee...

Always meant to have a crack at this one but have never got around to it .

So much going on in this part of the sky .

Great job !.

[geeklee]

2 hours ago, Neo_uk said:

Always meant to have a crack at this one but have never got around to it .

So much going on in this part of the sky .

Thanks Chris. Going by images here and on Astrobin there's so many different FOV options depending on your setup - all offering something unique and interesting. Maybe one for next year!

[Neo_uk]

16 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Thanks Chris. Going by images here and on Astrobin there's so many different FOV options depending on your setup - all offering something unique and interesting. Maybe one for next year!

Yes must have a go next year ....I'll put it on my to do list 😆 ...

And as you say so many different ways of shooting it .