NGC3718, NGC3729, and a cluster of 5 tiny galaxies
This is about as good as it’s going to get — almost 7 hours total exposure in this image, but if I count the frames in the “reject” pile, it represents 15 hours of actual telescope time.
Most rejects are because of wind. My telescope sits on a rickety balcony — no matter how cat-like my steps, I cannot walk on the balcony while the camera is going. Even with remote operation, where I’m sitting inside with a tablet controlling everything, a moderate wind is enough to give me peanuts instead of points:
This image is a composite of 4 monochrome images taken through red, green, and blue filters, and it should be a good representation of the actual color.
I took a quick image of NGC3718, exploring the possibility of deeper photos. It looks like this:
Annotated image of NGC3718
Better pictures exist. I’m interested in what I can produce with a good set of sub-exposures and better conditions (image taken two nights ago; near full-moon whiteout).
Just left of NGC3718 is a fascinating group of galaxies. They are dead center in the crop below:
Dead center is a group of 4 – 5 visible galaxies.
This is HCG 56, from the Hickson catalog of compact galaxy groups (HCG). I am confident that with clear dark skies and calm winds a cleaner picture is attainable.
I managed to get some more telescope time on NGC891 — now 38 total sub-exposures. IMO, the image quality is significantly improved, but you probably have to zoom in to notice. The contrast is a bit better, as well.
A closer crop of the image from yesterday. There are several small galaxies, and some small smudges that I think are galaxies that are not in the NGC catalog. Events of the day make it worth my time to scan noisy pictures for meaning.
Almost at the left edge is NGC5198, an eliptical galaxy about 170 million light years away; the extreme bottom left corner has NGC5169. 160mly away. And the small needle along the left downward diagonal is IC4263 — 140mly away. There’s also a neat double star in the extreme lower right corner — HIP 65664 A & B.
The companion smudge of the Whirlpool has its own designation, NGC5194. If you maximally pixel-peep the area just above and to the right of NGC5194, the galaxy IC4277 is a barely discernible elongated smear:
A close crop showing IC4277 dead center
M51 is about 23 million light years away. As best as I can find, IC4277 is about 10 times as far — say 230 million light years.
About 6 hours total exposure time over three nights with a 115mm telescope. Processed with PixInsight and GIMP.
M33 — pollution filter, half an hour total, good seeingM33 — nebula filter, two hours total, medium seeing
The sky here at Songbird Central suffers heavy pollution, both light pollution and chemical pollution. Astrophotography would be unsatisfying without filters to reduce the effects of that pollution.
I’ve forgotten exactly which filter it was I used with the first photo — I think the “Optolong L-eNhance”. A good general purpose filter. The image is dim, but if you look closely and carefully, there’s lots of sharp detail. A stack of 30 one minute exposures, for half an hour total.
The second photo was taken with the “Triad Ultra” filter, which emphasizes the light from nebulae, a stack of 13 three minute exposures and 17 five minute exposures — a little over two hours total. In this image the white light from the stars has been reduced, while the red light from the glowing gas areas is emphasized. The image is redder, overall, and there are many tiny reddish fuzzy blotches, which are nebulae within M33.
How does M33 really look? Photos are stories, not truth. If you were a lucky human with opportunity to look at M33 through a big enough telescope, you might see something like the first picture, but not the colors in the second. If you really got into it, you would recognize the overall shape of the galaxy, and you might even recognize details in the patterns of the stars.
[Edited to adjust the scale and other corrections.]
