NGC 5907

NGC 5907 - The Splinter, Spiral Galaxy in Draco

100% Scale, 2184x1472 pixels

 

Image Type: Monochrome Constellation: Draco
Telescope: 10" Aries f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain on Astro-Physics 900GTO German Equatorial Object: Sb+ Galaxy
Focal Length: 2642mm Distance: 50 million light years
Resolution: 0.53"/pixel at full size (image scale = 68%) Dimensions: 12.7'x1.4'
Accessories: Moravian G1-0300 as Off-Axis Guider, 0.67X Astro-Physics CCD Telecompressor Magnitude: 11.1 (V)
CCD: QSI 532wsg, running at -20 deg. C    
Exposures: 23x5 min

Aries MCT in Malvazinky Observatory
Filter(s): Astrodon Clear
Exposure Date: 10 April 2011
Location: Malvazinky Observatory in Prague, Czech Republic
Seeing, FWHM: 1.9"
Processing Software: MaximDL, CCDStack, PixInsight, Photoshop
Image Acquisition Software: MaximDL, TheSky6, CCDAutoPilot, FocusMax, PinPoint
Remarks: CCDStack:
* Calibrate
* Register
* Normalize
* Stack using Median and Poisson Data Rejection.

PixInsight:
* STF
* Generate mask to fully block bright stars: MASK-1
* Save MASK-1.
* Lucy-Richardson deconvolution to bring galaxy details with MASK-1 - with wavelet regularization to suppress noise.
* Automatic Background Extraction to remove gradient
* Generate mask to block bright stars and bright galaxy core and arms. Do not block noisy galaxy parts. Use cloned input image, blur by removing wavelet layers using A Trous Wavelet Transform then stretch histogram to binarize, save: MASK-2.
* Save MASK-2.
* A Trous Wavelet Transform to reduce background noise (noise reduction on layers 1 to 3) with MASK-2.
* Histogram Stretch
* Fixed dust donut using Dynamic Background Extraction
* Save image: IMAGE-PNG

Photoshop:
* Use IMAGE-PNG to make gradient for corner erosion procedure to repair elongated stars at corners.
* Save gradient to GRADIENT

PixInsight:
* Use GRADIENT as the mask, do erosion to make stars appear round at the corner.
* Save image: IMAGE-1
* A Trous Wavelet Transform to increase sharpness (increase bias and reduce noise on layers 1 to 2) with MASK-2.
* Resize
* Final Histogram stretch

       

 

Identification of KAZF Extragalactic Globular Clusters

A few bright globular clusters that are part of the NGC 5907 galaxy have been identified using the Kissler-Patig+Ashman+Zepf+Freeman catalogue and Aladin software. These globular clusters have appeared in the 1999 publication during imaging of NGC 5907 with the Hubble Space Telescope.

 

Other Interesting Things

SDSS J151556.56+561558.2 Quasar:

Detailed Information on the quasar from NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database

This object has red shift of 1.875 which translates to the following properties:

Light Travel-Time : 9.835 Gyr
Age at Redshift 1.875206 : 3.464 Gyr
Age of Universe : 13.299 Gyr

 

For all contacts: maxim.usatov -at- bcsatellite.net
2006-2011