One big behemoth of a glob

[Sam]

The weather has been a bit dog for a few weeks - but a wee respite from the southerly blasts allowed me to get Omega Centauri last night. What a massive glob! I thought M13 was pretty massive until this one filled the camera screen.

Equipment for this one was (as usual):

Skywatcher 250px (10" reflector)

Skywatcher EQ6 Syntrek (used with EQMOD)

Skywatcher ST80 piggy backed on the 250px (80mm refractor for the guidescope)

Canon 1000D DSLR (modded with the IR filter removed)

QHY5 guide camera (goes through the ST80)

For the image processing I use DSS and PixInsight 1.6.1. For guiding I use PHD guiding and I drift align with Guidemaster.

Omega Centauri is quite close to Centaurus A in the constellation of Centaurus. It's quite high in the south eastern sky in NZ at the moment. The glob is huge and is about 15,800 light years away. There's a thought that it may have once been a dwarf galaxy.

Sam

[markarian]

Fantastic image! Makes M13 look puny doesn't it. I'd love to see it.

[MikeP]

Hi Sam,

Great image. I saw it from Florida through binos. It was very low down in the sky in a very light polluted place - I wondered what it must be like from a better vantage point.

Mike

[Sam]

Thanks Mark and Mike - it certainly surprised me how big it is!

[peter shah]

beautiful....

[jgs001]

That's a monster and very well captured Sam, excellent.

[steppenwolf]

Massive glob - massively good image!

[ollypenrice]

Strewth! Stuck for words...

Also interesting to see how red it is when M13 is so blue.

Olly

[Sam]

Strewth! Stuck for words...

Also interesting to see how red it is when M13 is so blue.

Olly

That's probably my processing Olly:D, not sure if it's meant to be that red.

[barkis]

Oh how I envy you Sam. This is one big fellow I would dearly love to eyeball. That's one belter of an Image you got yourself.

Lovely sight indeed. Thanks for the pleasure.

Ron.

[Deneb]

That is BIG, that is very Big.. Very nice capture. I would love to see this captured with a Mak Newt.

Nadeem.

[ncjunk]

Great image Sam.

[James]

Yikes, what a monster! That must be something special through a big scope....

James

[Coco]

Wow... its massive... wonderful image..

Guy

[harry page]

Hi

Sure is a big sucker that

Does appear a bit red to me you can try SCNR to reduce the red, also have you tried HDR wavlets , it will help to control the core

Harry

[Sam]

Thanks for the comments, Harry I did SCNR on the red. I had a go at HDR but it made the image loose some of it's natural core brightness. I think this version looks a bit more natural and a lot less red.

Sam

[ezza123]

WOW - That is something else!

[tooth_dr]

Second version -WOW!!

[GuillermoBarrancos]

Second version -WOW!!

Agreed. WOW !!!

[kris h]

That is AMAZING Sam what a image

[southernman]

Great pic Sam where was it taken from ??

[harry page]

Hi

A lot less red and I leave the brightness to you

Now a very nice natural image

Harry

[johnh]

Magnificent image especially with better colour in the reprocess. Emigrated to Oz in April and this beast was rising in the East and can be seen with naked eye at 3rd mag as a strikingly fuzzy star bigger than the Moon and through eyepiece is jawdropping, but I've not seen it this way yet so will have to wait for next Spring.

John.

[Sam]

Thanks for your comments.

Southernman - I took it from my place in the Wairarapa, Lower North Island of NZ.

[saturn5]

Spectacular.!!