A couple more from Petts Wood - Needle Galaxy and reworked M101

[Roberto]

Hello All

Good spell of weather at the end of last week allowed me to finish the Needle Galaxy - NGC4565 - on which I had been working for a while.  I also took some L (through LP filter) and reworked an old version of M101 in February.
Further information at the Astrobin links:

NGC4565 - Needle Galaxy in Coma Berenices



Note main image is a crop of the galaxy at the centre of a much wider field:



Check also the annotated version:  https://www.astrobin.com/full/397598/C/?nc=user

M101 - New luminance and old colour



Thanks

Roberto

[Roberto]

Larger images:

[Carole]

Excellent Roberto.

I couldn't get anything as good as your M101 in a dark location. 

Carole

[JohnP]

Superb - The Needle Galaxy is fantastic - you sure that hasn't been nicked from Hubble? John

[Hugh]

The Needle Galaxy is stunning!

Hugh

[Roberto]

Thank you Carole, John, Hugh   

My current setup is not best suited to image galaxies as these tend to be small in size for the FoV and resolution of my refractor. I had never imaged the Needle so given the lack of larger targets I went for it.  It's incredible to think there might be other amateur astronomers looking down on us from there!

Roberto

[NoelC]

Lovely galaxies Roberto
Your M101 is reminiscent of Hubble images with the galaxies peaking out of space.
Really good.
That's a huge chip you've got on a 6" refractor; your flattener is obviously doing the business very well.

Noel

[Roberto]

Hi Noel

Thank you; yes the chip is a full frame KAF-16803 and I use a 4" flattener from Astro-Physics.  It has sagged a little over the winter so I will have to re-align it during the next full moon cycle; I can see some elongated stars in the upper corners of my latest images.  The funny looking stars in the M101 frame are from using luminance from a different optical path (different flattener actually) than the original colour shot.

Roberto

[RobertM]

Once again Roberto another set of lovely images.  It looks like Voyager is giving you some impressive imaging time.  I noticed that the Needle galaxy was RGB, is luminance on your todo list for the future ?

Robert

[Roberto]

Hi Robert

Thank you.  I did take Luminance through a LPS filter.  I have always used one for that channel  - not for colour or narrowband.  Details on Astrobin:

Dates:March 12, 2019,  March 13, 2019,  March 24, 2019,  March 25, 2019,  March 26, 2019,  March 28, 2019,  March 29, 2019,  March 30, 2019

Frames:
Astrodon Blue G2E: 26x300" bin 1x1
Astrodon Green G2E: 21x300" bin 1x1
Astrodon Red G2E: 18x300" bin 1x1
Hutech IDAS LPS P2 50mm square: 47x600" bin 1x1

Integration: 13.2 hours

Avg. Moon age: 17.57 days

Avg. Moon phase: 51.30%

Astrometry.net job: 2613488

RA center: 189.087 degrees

DEC center: 25.998 degrees

Pixel scale: 1.431 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: 180.426 degrees

Field radius: 0.278 degrees

Locations: Home - Petts Wood, Petts Wood, United Kingdom

Data source: Backyard

[MarkS]

Hi Roberto,

That Needle Galaxy is really excellent!  Well worth all the effort.

Mark