M33 - lighting up the pinwheel (Tom Gray)

M33 - lighting up the pinwheel

This is my first L(Ha)RGB image of M33 - the pinwheel galaxy in Triangulum. I actually forgot to collect any plain luminance frames, so substituted Ha data from my dual narrow band filter. The image is quite noisy - it was the last series collected at the end of a long night and completed just as the sky was starting to lighten.

I'm pleased with how the Ha filter accentuates the star forming blue and red HII emission regions in this massive galaxy, thought to contain over 40 billion stars. NGC 604 is the largest HII region, approximately 1500 light years in diameter.

I captured the data using my DSI mono camera, integration was 25m for narrow band, and 10m for each of the colour channels. Data were captured with automatic dark subtraction in Envisage, stacked frames aligned in Nebulosity, and (slightly over-) processed in Startools using a standard workflow; I may try alternative palettes such as HOO.

At f3 in my SCT, M33 fills the frame, I may try again with my 210mm zoom lens for a better portrait of this amazing neighbouring galaxy (at 2.7m LY) in our local group.

B

Description: A brightened version (in iPhoto).

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: I've reprocessed my M33 data collected under Bortle 2 skies in Scotland. Realising that the focus of my L data was soft, this is the RGB data only, aligned and stacked in Penumbra and then gentle processing in Startools to bring out the detail in the core. There is some noise and an unsightly gradient at the bottom of the image, probably due to light seeping into my camera. With only 38m (120s subs), and no luminance data, it is remarkable the difference that dark Bortle 2 skies make.

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D

Description: I've completely reprocessed my LRGB from last September, removing all data from my narrowband filter, which was soft. This is the LRGB data 60s x 29 L, 120s x 14 R, 12 G, and 10 B respectively. These were stacked and aligned in Nebulosity, then processed in Startools 1.7. A standard workflow, with HDR brightening and more aggressive sharpening and deconvolution, with final brightening, and repair of a few deformed stars at the edge of field.

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: A saturation boost, and rotated to a more familiar perspective. The bright emissions, dust lanes and young hot blue stars show up well in this version, although I find it a bit too 'bright', overshadowing the subtle spiral arms.

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: A final revision to this image, some of my first LRGB data from my Meade DSI III Pro mono camera. The best 60% frames were aligned and stacked in ASTAP and processed in Startools. I changed the orientation of the camera between L and RGB images and have not cropped the image, which comprises 120s exposures (29xL through my L-eNhance narrow band filter, 7xR, 4xG, 3xB) = total 86m integration.

I am pleased with the differentiation, colour and contrast in this final revision, A surprising amount of detail is visible in such limited data, which was taken under Bortle 2 skies in Scotland.

Uploaded: ...

Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
UK Astro-Imaging
Optolong L-eNhance filter

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4509744
PixInsight job	9WT3Z76235AASOIWPEZER1DMG0W4JKAA
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	01h33m55s.52
RA (top/left)	01h33m43s.39
RA (top/right)	01h35m49s.29
RA (bottom/right)	01h34m07s.94
RA (bottom/left)	01h32m02s.90

Dec (center)	+30°41′17″.7
Dec (top/left)	+30°16′21″.8
Dec (top/right)	+30°45′31″.3
Dec (bottom/right)	+31°06′01″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	+30°36′57″.8

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