ASTRO: M51 -- another one

After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Great color shor of the galaxy Rick!
reg
Dirk

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
news
After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

And another great shot Rick!!
Very impressive!!

Menno

Rick,

you certainly have lots of signal here. The faint "streamers" to the left
are really faint, they only show up in my image if I stretch it so much that
the galaxy itself is totally burned out.
Colour also looks good, most HII regions in M51 are quite small and probably
really need some Halpha to show well.
I also have colour data for my M51 (including Halpha), not sure if I can get
anything useful though because lots of thin clouds moved through during the
colour frames.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news
After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

On 2007-04-17 15:33:55 -0400, Rick Johnson said:

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


Awesome image!

looks very nice Rick

the more I look at this pair of galaxies and the more I read alternative
views on it, I tend to agree that they are an optical arrangement and not
really interacting. I think the larger one is way in front of the smaller
one and that any gravitational interaction is pretty small.


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
news
After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Rick McQ wrote:


Just to the left of your image there are three stars; two bright
ones at the 11:00 and 5:00 o'clock position and a dimmer star at the
1:00 o'clock position.

To the left of that there is a little fuzzy that appears to be a
very small faint image of another M51. Do you see it?

Rick McQ

There are two "pairs" of galaxies in the shot besides M51 and NGC 5195.
The close one just to the right of the arm as it starts to overlay
5195 is IC 4278. Though the position given for 4278 is noticeably NW of
it's real position by a few seconds of arc. Both NED and SIMBAD have
the same position error. It is quite blue and both are about equal
size and brightness. NED says of it: "Possible double nucleus or
interacting pair?" It has no radial velocity or magnitude data that I
find. Odd since it is much brighter than the other one.

Redder and more unequal are the "pair" you seem to be mentioning near
the left edge of the photo. That is IC 4282 per NED. SIMBAD doesn't
have it in it's data base for some reason. NED's uncorrected radial
velocity of 13835 would indicate it is a bit under 600,000 light years
away. It's magnitude is rated as 17.6 There are no notes so not sure
if these are for the brighter part or both have the same red shift.

Lots of unknowns to these faint background fuzzies. So many galaxies,
so few grad students to do the grunt work.

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Rick

The more I look at this image the more awesome it is...

really well done!

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
news
After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Thanks. Scale is smaller than I'd like.

Now I need a night of really good seeing so I can bin 1x1. There's a
lot more detail there if the seeing will permit.

I do have the advantage of very dark skies here though not as dark as
the sand hills of Nebraska. Winter gives a lot of sky glow being up
north and summer gives not much night to work with. Sand hills of
Nebraska are so dark you can actually see shadows cast by the summer
Milky Way. Only other spot I've seen that was from McDonald Observatory
in Texas. They have more clear nights down there and a good shot at
Omega Centauri. Even with a full moon it was spectacular in the 82"
scope back in the mid 60's. We must have been at about 500x. Yet the
stars were nice tiny dots with the seeing they get. You just saw a most
fantastic, fully resolved star field with black sky between stars. Move
the scope all over and it never seemed to end. A mind altering view.

Right now seeing is so bad Venus is twinkling like crazy and radar shows
rain heading this way in a couple hours so I'm not opening the roof
tonight. House is so tight I don't hear the rain starting.

I went to order Maxim's cloud sensor but they are out of stock with no
idea when any more are coming. Guess I waited too long on that one.

Rick

Richard Crisp wrote:
Rick

The more I look at this image the more awesome it is...

really well done!

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
news
After imaging it with the 6" f/4 last year I had to try with the 14"
this year. Since it was only an hour from the meridian I waited for it
to cross started the exposures and went to bed. So this is another shot
taken while sleeping. I seem to do my best work then. Though it gave
me fits to process. I knew it would finish somewhat into astronomical
twilight. Normally blue is my last color and if I'm short of blue then
the image doesn't do well in color. I can survive with less red however
so I told CCDSoft (so I thought) to take the blue first. Then green
followed by red. I'd always done red green blue. What I didn't realize
was that that only changed the labels on the files. So I'd only taken
red images labeled as blue and blue ones labeled red. Boy did that
result in a very oddly colored M51 when I assembled the RGB image. I
spent three days before my brain figured it out. Anyway astronomical
twilight didn't hurt the blue much so I did get usable color once I
forced red to be blue and vise versa. I should go back and rename those
files so I don't go through that again.

I was surprised how golden brown NGC 5195 was compared to the blue white
of M51. My 10 minute sub frames seem to have over exposed the H11
regions to white. I'll have to add some H alpha data or redo the color
to bring them out.

I do like how well it shows that the dust seen over NGC 5195 really
comes from M51's (NGC 5194's) arm that extends over and above NGC 5195.
I always thought the stars streaming out of 5195 were all from it but
it appears there's a couple faint blue streams of stars that may be from
M51 as well. Quite a bit of blue glow around M51 as well so it lost
stars besides having its arms drawn out. I did process this to try and
show the faint outer shell of stars around these two galaxies.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

"Rick Johnson" wrote
......
Lots of unknowns to these faint background fuzzies. So many galaxies, so
few grad students to do the grunt work.

Where are all the grad student "slaves" of the past? The current crop are
all too busy watching 'Mad Money' on MSNBC and investing their grant funds
in the stock market!

George N