Cool Way South Galaxies with Mouseover
NGC1399 is the large globular cluster high in the middle of the image. The rest of the smudges are galaxies. I particularly like the little Saturn-like galaxies on the right..
As you may notice, when you mouse over the image you get a chart superimposed, and you can count 11 or so fairly bright galaxies as identified by their NGC numbers.
I decided to take advantage of the dark southern skies at the HAS site and go for this one. These galaxies are low (right over the tree tops when shot) on the southern horizon from my location (Houston TX area, about 29 degrees north). This is an area between Eridanus and Fomax.
Image notes: This is only 2x4 =8 minutes total exposure, and the guiding wasn't just on, but after some fairly serious processing it's not bad. Noise reduction was the major challenge, and I used multiple applications of both Neat Image and the RC-Astro gradientXterminator filters. Due to the very short exposure and low position on the horizon, this image is not as deep as NGC 1365
Check out the area of the sky just below this, 
NGC 1365 which you can see a bit of at the bottom right of the frame on this page..
Takahashi TOA 130 (a 5" APO refractor) and Canon EOS D20a. My current image processing workflow is here.
Copyright © 2006, Dick Locke. All Rights Reserved.
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