Ancient Whirlpool (about 3 hours)

Just amazing ! Have you tried any other galaxies ? Just what can be seen from one`s own back garden ! !
 
Fascinating image - I love this kind of stuff

I found the following a great way (in simple terms) of getting my head around just how far away some things are......


Imagine a journey beginning at midnight on January 1st starting from our own sun. We'll be travelling at the speed of light or 186,000 miles a second.

How tiny is our own solar system in the greater scheme of things ?

Well, we pass Earth after about 8 minutes
After just 5 hours & 3.5 Billion Miles we pass Pluto
By the time we exit our Solar system it's still Jan 1st.

Lets keep going at 186,000 miles a second for longer than 1 day and see what comes next.

Our Solar Sytem fades away and becomes a spec in space.

It would take 5 whole years to reach our nearest Star 25 trillion miles away.

After 100 years travelling we start to see the Milky Way which our solar system is part of.

After 1000 years travelling the spiral of the Milky way starts to become defined

After 100,000 years we're far enough out to see the spiral of the Milky Way. Our own Solar system is one of trillions in that spiral.

After 5 Million years travelling the whole Milky Way Galaxy shrinks and becomes just one dot amongst a group of about 30 Galaxies which we call the 'local group' cluster.

After 50 Million years travelling that local group become just one dot in the sky and we pass by the Virgo cluster containing over 2,000 galaxies.

Keep going cluster after cluster

1 Billion years travelling

5 Billion years travelling

10 Billion years - and you see billions of galaxies and clusters arranged together.
 
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Thanks all...

Andy, I've done a few, although the short focal lengths I'm using (600mm and 1370mm), limit me to the closer ones. I might have a try at something like Makarians chain this year, but I need to work out the best focal length, I suspect that even 600mm might be to long but then I'll lose detail... tough one.
 
I love your macro shots John :D

Great as always (y)
 
:D... thanks Chris
 
Can I ask how many images were stacked John, and how do you prevent noise with such long exposures. Sorry if these are dumb questions but I'm a newbie waiting for clear sky's.
 
Dougie, that was 16 images stacked (I put the details in the border to remind me). The combination of the light frames, subtracted darks and bias frames, and dithering between light frames deals with the majority of the noise effects, then I have an astro preset that helps deal with residual noise in the background.
 
Thank you
 
jgs001 said:
Dougie, that was 16 images stacked (I put the details in the border to remind me). The combination of the light frames, subtracted darks and bias frames, and dithering between light frames deals with the majority of the noise effects, then I have an astro preset that helps deal with residual noise in the background.
Click to expand...

Ok! I'm newer than a newbie. That was double dutch:LOL::LOL::LOL: Sorry John, I'll have to swot up on all that terminology:)
 
That is stunning. 24 million light-years away?! WOW, that's just amazing. I concur that you should send that off, I think you should get paid for publishing that kind of thing! It's mind-blowing.
 
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Crikey, if this is one you consider to be not your best i can't wait to see one that you are fully happy with..............that is amazing especially when one takes into account the time and patience needed to get something like this. I'm looking forward to your next post !
 
Fantastic image. I'd be interested to know what make of telescope you use.
 
Thanks all...

Neale, this was taken using a GSO 6"RC (a Guang Sheng Optical, 6" Richey Chretien reflecting telescope). I also use a Celestron 80ED (80mm Refractor) made by Synta, also from China. The numbers are the aperture, not the focal length.
 
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