Re: [APML] Antennae NGC 4038/4039 from WSP

[Mark Jenkins <mrj@bigcigarastronomy.com>]

Hi Tony,

I forwarded your comments on to Roland. I know he turned off his subscription to APML before WSP to avoid the large backlog of messages. I do not think he has turned on his subscription since returning home.

This is the first iteration of processing. I know that the raw frames have a pretty low signal to noise ratio and I think Roland did a bang up job pulling the data from the noise. I am not sure that anything further will be gained by trying to coax the faint stuff out more than it already is except to amplify the noise to an unacceptable level.

A limited number of exposures coupled with some bad darks and no flats may hamper further processing.

We were trying to record the maximum resolution of the cores, we were not necessarily going after the tails or the faint galaxies. 

There is a marked difference when viewed on my 22" Apple Flat Panel vs my Radius PressView 21 SR colorimeter calibrated CRT. On the 22" Flat Panel I can see many of the faint galaxies and of course much more of the extent of the galaxy arms as well. No so on the Radius.

I enjoyed your presentation at WSP this year. I am of course, extremely envious of your location. ;-)

Take care.

Mark Jenkins

On Monday, Feb 24, 2003, at 10:40 America/Chicago, Tony Hallas wrote:

> Mark,
>  
>     Superb detail... what I would expect from such good equipment and such good seeing... but knowing the little that I know about CCD image processing, it appears that a lot of faint detail is missing in the image... I have seen more detail of the tails in film images... if this was processed correctly I'll bet there's a whole bunch of hidden stuff that would come out... including many, many background galaxies. My friend Bill Williams pointed out that we recorded and brought out the faint galaxies that are above the Horsehead... David Malin was the first to point these out shooting with monster scopes under ideal conditions... Bill and I did the same thing with a CCD and a 6" refractor... so there must be incredible amounts of faint detail in your image... it just needs to be brought out... when I look at it, I get the feeling that half of it is missing... otherwise the amount of detail in the bright areas is beautiful.
>  
>      Tony
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