A Rose by any other name...

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy

OK Folks - this is not as pretty as could be. I have a lot of work to do to sort out my vignetting. When processing this image, I really wanted to focus on the Galaxy detail rather than the entire image.

You can see the star at the bottom of the Galaxy is a little bloomed and has washed out surrounding detail, which looks odd. But note the edge-on spiral in the distance (just to the lower right of the bloomed star)

This was 36 * 2 minute subs. I took 94 in all but a lot were rejected due to poor tracking.

Further details are available here:
www.astroshack.net/gallery/galaxies/M63.php

Dave

The detail is amazing, particularly the dark bands near the top right.

Nice image!

You can see the star at the bottom of the Galaxy is a little bloomed and has washed out surrounding detail, which looks odd.

Looks more like anti-blooming software went on the rampage

Great detail though. well done.

Bart - initially I though the dark streaks top right of the galaxy were a defect but no, they are there. Pretty heavy dust lanes alright. And pretty heavy on the PC processing power. I can fell the MacPro calling out as I type

Al - I didn't do any antiblooming processing - there was only one star with a small bit of evident blooming. I went a bit wild on deconvolution but tried to soften it with an unsharp routine. I failed miserably on the image as whole. But then my goal was to accenuate the real detail in the galaxy - it really is beautifully rough and bumpy in there. More so than say M51 or M101.

Glad you both like it and hopefully, I can improve it over time. It'll take me a few months or so I guess to get used to the new imager. But its one heck of a camera. I was operating it at -70 degrees at one stage.

Dave

Hi Dave
Well done on your recent astronomical upgrades, I couldn’t help but notice a while back that your venerable Celestron 8” SCT is now replaced with a mighty Celestron C14. Also I have no doubt that you will max that FLI CCD to its limits and get the best results from your new system (that’s quite a quantum jump from a Meade DSI which has served you well in the past). I am looking forward to seeing your work here on this board and on your website.

Good luck and many clear skies
Mike

This just shows the amazing potential of this camera/scope setup.
Its hard to believe those dark lines to the upper right are real, just amazing.