44 replies to this topic

[rflinn68]

Ever since seeing this image a few weeks ago I've been wanting to try my hand at this galaxy cluster. This region of the sky is truly awe-inspiring to me. Makes the question of "Are we alone" seem pretty silly, but thats just me.   

 

The last couple of nights have at least been clear so I gave it a go. Monday night I collected 24 luminance subs of 900 seconds each. Last night I got a little RGB, and with it still being clear after that I focused luminance and did a meridian flip and kept going. I ended up with 41 luminance subs but tossed 8 of them from clouds coming in towards the end of each night. Guiding was the best I've ever had last night. I went out to check things around 4am and PHD was reporting 0.30" rms total error. Very pleased with that!   

 

 

[jeffreyj]

Not to knock on the other guys image, which is very good, but yours is incredible! The detail and processing are just fantastic. Great job!

[anismo]

This one is a beauty Richard!.  Sharp, nice colors and well processed.. I like it a lot and I want to image it too!!!! 

[17.5Dob]

Very Nice !! In my big dob, that's always been my #1 favorite visual DSO just for the mind blowing factor of seeing that many galaxies in one EP field.

[Madratter]

Smoking!

[Madratter]

Did I say HOT!!!

[josh smith]

Awesome!!!  I told you it was a fun target

[Bradicus]

Yeah ... that's just cool.  Nicely done.

[rflinn68]

Thanks guys!   I need to get this one printed and hang it on the wall. I just get lost in there staring at all the galaxies, each thousands or hundreds of thousands of light years across. 

[TimN]

Fantastic Richard. One of those images that really does make you feel that the universe must be teaming with life.

[Ricky]

Beautiful!

[rflinn68]

Thanks Ricky and Tim!   Yeah Tim, I'd say it probably is teeming with life. There's an awful lot of space in this shot and its just a tiny part of the universe.

    

Check this out you guys. Just insane! Anybody care to count the PGC, NGC, and IC galaxies that are annotated?   There are several more that it didnt annotate. 

 

 

 

 

 

[nitegeezer]

When you add the names that really makes one think.  A lot of the smaller I was thinking that it might possibly be just a star, but no, that is a lot of galaxies, and a lot of chances at intelligent life!!

[rflinn68]

When you add the names that really makes one think.  A lot of the smaller I was thinking that it might possibly be just a star, but no, that is a lot of galaxies, and a lot of chances at intelligent life!!

 

One in a million chances would still be several. 

[Footbag]

Gotta love that annotation!  Great image!

[jhayes_tucson]

Wow...that's an outstading image!!!  Nice job.

John

[terry59]

Very nice Rich. What if "they" just don't want to talk to us. It's not like we are aggressive or hostile or anything

[kraegar]

That picture is excellent, thank you for sharing!

[Madratter]

Very nice Rich. What if "they" just don't want to talk to us. It's not like we are aggressive or hostile or anything

 

It may be a bit premature for us to look for the "next" intelligent species in the universe. That presumes we have found the first one.

[rflinn68]

  Nobody wants to talk to idiots Terry! 

 

Thanks Adam, John, Terry, and kraegar! Very much appreciated. 

[David Ault]

Fantastic image Richard!  You did an awesome job collecting and processing this one.  I think this is my favorite of your images so far

 

Regards,

David

[rflinn68]

Thank you David! 

[Thirteen]

No doubt a fantastic image and I'm a sucker for longer focal length work. I've been somewhat fixated on your guiding performance over your last few posts. I may PM you regarding your experience with that mount.

[Jon Rista]

Wow, this is amazing, Richard. I was looking for targets to image the next time I have clear skies. This and Markarian's came up as options. This is truly amazing, though...I don't think I could do this target justice if I tried after seeing this.

[rflinn68]

Thanks Thirteen.   My guiding has been MUCH improved since binning my QHY 2X2. One reason the Lodestar is so good as a guide camera IMO is the very large pixels, 8.2um X 8.4 I believe. The QHY5L-II has very small 3.75uM pixels which also makes it a very good camera for planetary work. It responded very well to binning 2X2 for me. My Atlas Pro has also been a huge improvement over my old CGEM DX. 

 

Thanks Jon...This is really a remarkable region in the sky. Markarians Chain is really cool too, but this is insane.   Its really fun to process too, nothing special was done here. I wondered how good I could do after seeing the image I linked to in my original post that won Image of the Day on March 31st. Mark did a great job on his and after bookmarking his image I just had to give it a go when I got some clear skies. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I'm sure you can do a nice job on it too. This is shot at ~1150mm focal length. I dont know if you have your CCDT67 yet, but I debated a little over using it or shooting at f/8 and I'm happy I used it here. You could shoot it at 600mm and have a take on it somewhere between mine and Josh's.