NGC 1587/8

[mdstuart]

After viewing this pair with my 10 inch scope I had a go at imaging these interacting elipticals with global rent a scope.

I am still not convinced I saw the smaller NGC 1588. I will wait for the next clear moonless night to try again.

I have attached the preview picture for you. You can see some other fainter fuzzies in this 300 second luminance picture with a 12 inch reflector with some outrageously expensive CCD camera.

I will have fun with the FIT image when I get home!

Mark

[MartinB]

Crikey Mark, you don't believe in making life easy for yourself do you. Just looked this pair up on the internet and there aren't many images out there!

[mdstuart]

Yes, but this was the galaxy I saw at the scope so I just felt it had to be my target.

Mark

[mdstuart]

OK. I give in is there a FIT viewer that will view the 135meg images from GRAS. I either get a black screen or a few stars but no galaxy...

I had a jpeg last image on the server so I have played with it..as attached.

How can I find out the details of the very faint galaxies in the background as I would love to identify them..

Thanks

Mark

[RyanParle]

Mark, have you solved your problem of opening the .fits file?

What are you using at the moment to open the file? I highly recommend "fits liberator" which is a photoshop plugin allowing you to open fits files in photoshop. also Maxim (dl/ccd/dslr) is very good for manipulating .fits files

the other thing worth mentioning is that .fits files usually contain more data than the screen can display, therefore you need to adjust the value of the black point and white point to get an image you can see properly on screen. this may be why you only see a few of the brighter stars.

if you're still stuck i can brin my laptop along to a BAS meeting and give you a bit of a demo in working with .fits

[mdstuart]

Ryan

Thanks yes I got it open using a freeware piece of software called IRIS..It looked black but I hit the auto threshold button and the galaxies appeared like magic..

Thanks for the offer though..did you find an ED80 in the end?

Mark

[RyanParle]

Ah yes IRIS, a good piece of software, i did use it for a while, but found maxim was more user friendly, it's also ASCOM compliant so it controls cameras, guiders, mounts and focusers.

i havent found an 80mm apo yet, i'm not going to hurry in making a decision, but right now i'm thinking of the Astro-Proffessional 80ed-3 Triplet, at £375 its a steal!!