It's Pavo Galaxy season and this is my (latest) take on the grand old lady
Apart from a little periodic and annoying high cloud occasionally, I was fortunate to once again get some excellent conditions over the last New Moon period and managed to collect just over 18 hrs on this majestic southern galaxy and remarkable twin of our own galaxy, The Milky Way
The seeing largely cooperated all of the four nights, with FWHM of raw sub frames ranging between 1.5" to 2.0".
As is customary now for galaxy images, I made three separate master Luminances, using the best data for the details and the whole lot to achieve the depth and then blended them all together, I think it largely works
I was keen to reveal the outer long thread like faint, complex and flocculent arm structures and some of the galactic cirrus in the field.
Mike,
Beautiful image of Pavo from your vantage point above the clouds
Star colours are something else, some of the best I’ve ever seen , true colour temperatures
Well done !
Q: how did you calibrate your flats ( flat darks ? ) field is perfectly flat and even !!
Beautiful image of a tough object. Well done, objectives achieved!
Thanks Andrew
Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
That's excellent Mike,
surely that is APOD worthy?
You've got detail right inside the core too.
The Ha has highlighted the numerous nebulas.
cheers
Allan
Cheers Allan, yeah using only the best data for the details in the galaxy seems to work, if I watch the atmosphere and collect the Lum when the conditions are ripe, I seem to be able to collect enough Luminance data at FWHM's of under 1.8" for most images now, it's great
Quote:
Originally Posted by petershah
another stunning image....beautiful colour balance and detail
Thanks a lot Pete
Quote:
Originally Posted by Startrek
Mike,
Beautiful image of Pavo from your vantage point above the clouds
Star colours are something else, some of the best I’ve ever seen , true colour temperatures
Well done !
Q: how did you calibrate your flats ( flat darks ? ) field is perfectly flat and even !!
Cheers
Martone
Thanks Mr Warhol
Yeah I guess it's no secret but a mixture of yellow, white and blue are the main colours we should see in stars, with the odd reddish one.
I don't calibrate my flats with flat darks, in fact I don't use dark frames at all, the SX camera is so low noise, I just rely on a three pixel dither guide and median combine, works very well and much less bother.
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 21-08-2024 at 10:23 AM.
Lovely result Mike. Agree that it is a good strategy to be critical of the data the we allow through the review process, particularly with the luminance. Your efforts have paid off here with another fine image
Stunning Mike just stunning. Perfectly balanced and the core detail is wonderful!
I think I might steal your idea with the luminance and do something similar on my next project. I find it very frustrating when I need to collect 20-30hr for a decent broadband project from the burbs but can only get one or 2 nights during that time with good seeing conditions. This might make a real difference
Lovely result Mike. Agree that it is a good strategy to be critical of the data the we allow through the review process, particularly with the luminance. Your efforts have paid off here with another fine image
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave882
Stunning Mike just stunning. Perfectly balanced and the core detail is wonderful!
I think I might steal your idea with the luminance and do something similar on my next project. I find it very frustrating when I need to collect 20-30hr for a decent broadband project from the burbs but can only get one or 2 nights during that time with good seeing conditions. This might make a real difference
Thanks a lot Rodney and Dave
NGC 6744 is actually a low surface brightness galaxy, somewhat flocculent and quite tenuous really, so I tried to reflect that in the final processed version. It looks quite different on phone screens compared to a proper adjusted monitor too.
Another stunning image Mike!
I think this is the first winter in a lot of years I've not taken a telescope or camera out. I've had other stuff going on in my empty head and somehow it all just seems like worthless junk to me (like everything I own) but hopefully I'll at least get out and get one nice Milky Way stack soon.
I'd never expect my images to look like many of the members here but I'm happy with what I get.
Another stunning image Mike!
I think this is the first winter in a lot of years I've not taken a telescope or camera out. I've had other stuff going on in my empty head and somehow it all just seems like worthless junk to me (like everything I own) but hopefully I'll at least get out and get one nice Milky Way stack soon.
I'd never expect my images to look like many of the members here but I'm happy with what I get.
Thanks a lot Leo.
I hope you manage to find some time to get out under the stars, it can be quite cathartic
Bloody excellent Mike, as usual, stunning. I imaged this one a long while back with my RC.
Erik
Cheers Erik, yeah it's actually quite a faint bugger as far as galaxies that are large on the sky go. Funnily enough, I have an almost photographic (pardon the pun) memory for images and I do recall you effort from about 10 years back
and thanks a lot 
