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Virgo cluster mosaic

geeklee

By geeklee
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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geeklee

geeklee

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Possibly like others, I've been waiting to see if I'd get any more moonless astro dark nights, but that's it here!

On one hand this is a little in no man's land - not quite deep enough due to being a mosaic in the UK :) and not a lot of focal length for close up detail.  What I hope it does showcase is an enjoyable view into the Virgo cluster.  

It's a four pane mosaic taken with my Epsilon 130D and 2600MC Pro - around 14 hours spread evenly across the four panes and three sessions - 07Feb24, 15Mar24, 30Mar24.  Captured with NINA, pre-processed in APP and processed in PixInsight.

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Throughout this image there are so many galaxy sizes and types.  Some clear with structure, others just coming out of the background.  I have spent a lot of time just scouring back and fourth!

My favourite is probably IC3481, IC3481a (PGC41646) and IC3483 (centre bottom).  These appear to have some form of interaction but if I understand what I've read (and it's still accepted today) IC3483 is a foreground galaxy and it's just a coincidence that it lines up.  I was drawn to this small group as the supposed interaction was just about coming out the noise with a little time, but after a few hours it was still faint but easier to distinguish.

TypeCat in PixInsight had 1,369 Quasars listed in this field.  On closer inspection a lot had nothing visible to my eye.  I trimmed down this list and scripted some simple output from Simbad until I had the four with the highest redshift (z) that were visible.  I created a custom catalogue (yellow) which shows their designation, redshift and Light Travel Time.  Sadly I didn't break 12 Gyrs this time, but it isn't really that much integration. Fascinating working through this and I hope it's correct.

Here, it's reduced to 75% of its original size - do click through to open fully.  Thanks for looking.

image.thumb.jpeg.61b33ab8ecbf5f804e6628840fe9b62a.jpeg

The annotated version if you want to look something up:

image.thumb.jpeg.2db5a1d619726bd28d4b4acd60375f2d.jpeg

Edited by geeklee
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Adreneline

Adreneline

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2 hours ago, geeklee said:

I trimmed down this list and scripted some simple output from Simbad until I had the four with the highest redshift (z) that were visible.  I created a custom catalogue (yellow) which shows their designation, redshift and Light Travel Time.

This is clever stuff Lee - the defaults in PI Image Solve & Annotate can be overwhelming! Another great job joining all four panes - seamless integration and a perfect background - to my eyes!

Adrian

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geeklee

geeklee

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3 hours ago, Adreneline said:

This is clever stuff Lee - the defaults in PI Image Solve & Annotate can be overwhelming! Another great job joining all four panes - seamless integration and a perfect background - to my eyes!

Thanks Adrian - I hope I pulled the information together correctly.

38 minutes ago, Ags said:

What do you use to stitch the panes together?

Thanks Agnes.  I used AstroPixelProcessor (APP).  It usually deals with mosaics very well.  I prepared each pane (cropped, gradient removal) then combined.  Three separate sessions had created some annoying gradients - particularly in two panes where I had to be careful in processing and just about got away with it!

19 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

An absurd number of galaxies, great image!

Thanks Oskari.  It's easy pickings in this area but I think there's just enough integration to pull out a huge variety of galaxies and give that feeling of a really populated field.

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geeklee

geeklee

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4 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Amazing image! My current FoV just about encompases the Eyes!

Thanks Dave.  That's funny you mention your FoV - I remember admiring one of your recent images this week and had wondered just what that FoV would be in this area :) 

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wimvb

wimvb

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2 hours ago, Vroobel said:

When I run a StarXterminator on it I found 63 galaxies.

Unfortunately, StarXTerminator doesn’t eliminate just stars.

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WolfieGlos

WolfieGlos

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Great image Lee, and some nice details in the spirals too.

On 19/04/2024 at 08:48, geeklee said:

TypeCat in PixInsight had 1,369 Quasars listed in this field.  On closer inspection a lot had nothing visible to my eye.  I trimmed down this list and scripted some simple output from Simbad until I had the four with the highest redshift (z) that were visible.  I created a custom catalogue (yellow) which shows their designation, redshift and Light Travel Time.  Sadly I didn't break 12 Gyrs this time, but it isn't really that much integration. Fascinating working through this and I hope it's correct.

That's clever. I have PI on a trial, an image I produced was littered with quasars that were not visible. I'll have to find out how to do this 😉

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geeklee

geeklee

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6 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

I'll have to find out how to do this 😉

Thanks Chris.  I scripted into Simbad (I say scripted, it was minimal) a query for every quasar found by TypeCat.  Brought this data back into Excel and did some cell work to generate a new custom catalogue that included the red shift values in the "name".  Once I had this, I created an annotated image and iterated over this process, removing all quasars from the catalogue file below a redshift where I had something in the image.  Then created another annotated image with the latest list and did the same again, and again...

TypeCat can be found among the script set here if you don't already have it.  QSO is the designation to look for in the list.

In AnnotateImage, you can add ("+") a custom catalogue where you point to the output from TypeCat or just a text file you've created yourself (tab delimited).  You can create all sorts of custom annotations this way.

image.thumb.png.7c625df7fcba3599050a355903299a05.png

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tomato

tomato

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It’s a great image and an ideal FOV for this region. I would love to cover this area with my Esprit 150 rig but I’d need at least 12 panels…

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geeklee

geeklee

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12 hours ago, tomato said:

It’s a great image and an ideal FOV for this region. I would love to cover this area with my Esprit 150 rig but I’d need at least 12 panels…

Thanks Steve.  Only 12? :D Even using copious binning/resampling to keep the integration down, it would be a hell of a task bringing it altogether.  The gradients alone would likely drive me to despair.  Still, 2 or 3 panels a year maybe? 😉

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