M84, M86-91

[MarkS]

I took this in France over the weekend.

Canon EOS 300D with 300mm telephoto at F5.6  - 24 x 5minute subs guided with the Celestron C11 and a Philips SPC900 webcam.

[Fay]

Mark, I love it, really nice!

Hope to be able to get outside a couple of nights this week.

[Mike]

Well done Mark. That is one of the Photo Challenges ticked off the list.

[RobertM]

Very, very nice Mark ! You've got the framing spot on for all those Messiers.  We could also have a 'count the faint fuzzies' contest at the next OAS meeting with that image ...

Looks like one challenge has been won without anyone else managing to fire a shot

[MarkS]

Fay, Mike, Robert, thanks for your comments.

I discovered that Makarian's Chain is a surprisingly challenging subject - those galactic discs are very faint.  But with a dedicated monochrome CCD and dark skies I'm sure someone could get a better image showing more of the discs.

[JohnP]

Mark - That is very nice - seems you are getting some very nice images from your French trips... Have you got a link to the full size image (or is this a crop from the full size). A dedicated CCD would be nice but unless you have one of those £4000 35mm size chips I doubt you'll be ale to get the FOV with a single image - it'll take a mosaic of somekind.

Love the image though,  John

[MarkS]

John,

It's the full frame with the edges trimmed slightly (post -stacking) and then 3x3 binned.  If you're interested, I'll post the unbinned image tonight.

This trip I got 2 clear nights out of the 3 nights I spent there.  On the other clear night I got M101 but haven't processed it yet.   I was questioned by security at Dover before boarding the ferry - they wanted to know what was in the big boxes!

You're right about the huge expense of a dedicated CCD with big chip size - compared with £150 for a second hand Canon EOS300D.  Maybe someone should produce monochrome DSLRs ...

[Mike]

Mark - Have you had a go at counting the number of galaxies in this image? There are loads. It would be interesting to know how many there were.

[MarkS]

I haven't actually tried to count them but I can see a large number.  That area of sky has more than its fair share of galaxies!

[Mike]

I can count approx 30.