Noel Carboni is currently assembling the NFO Spring mega project of 2010.

This is a massive mosaic of the Virgo/Coma galaxy cluster region centred on the famous Markarian Chain of galaxies.  This mosaic is created from a number of frames taken with both the Sky 90 and Hyperstar III telescopes both using the SXVF-M25C one-shot colour camera, and the image reveals many hundreds of galaxies.

I shall be creating just a very few HUGE prints measuring some 5 feet in height and 6-7 feet in length which will be available for purchase.  These will be extremely expensive to acquire (sorry), but they are totally unique high-resolution prints specifically designed for the corporate environment and with an extremely limited print run of just 25 prints!

Stay tuned to the New Forest Observatory blog to keep up to date with this, our most ambitious project to-date.  If you would like to pre-order your massive “Galaxy Wall” print for your institution then please mail sales@newforestobservatory.com for more information – but please be quick, with only 25 prints in total, they will soon be snapped up!

I took the frame to the left of M100 last night using a bit of dead-reckoning – and unbelievably I scored a perfect hit  So the top two frames on the Markarian Chain mega-mosaic are now complete!  The bottom mosaic around M87 is also done – so the last bit of work I am going to do on this one, having had a word with Noel, is to get some nice deep high-resolution data using the Hyperstar III, on the Chain itself.  I daren’t say this half way through the day – but it actually looks like another clear night tonight – so you know what I’ll be doing.  If it is clear, that’ll be something like 7 clear Moonless nights this month so far – I think that must be a record from when I started in September 2004.  If I get any more clear nights this month (yes I’m now getting greedy) I will probably just try to add more and more good data to the Chain.  Virgo is now making its way West and soon it will be too far over into the trees for me to get a good imaging session on it during a single evening – time to move onto something new, probably the goodies in the Ursa Major/Canes Venatici region.

So last night was another unexpectedly clear night and I imaged the M100 region.  I did not expect that this frame would fit onto the ultra-mega-Markarian Chain mosaic, but of course it does – perfectly – at the top.  I now need to get the frame off to the left to complete the top part of the mosaic now – I can see this is going to be a never-ending job at this rate and poor old Noel will be adding frames to this tapestry for ever and a day.

This is another frame to add to the mega-mosaic that is the Markarian Chain region on the Coma/Virgo border.  Just processed by Noel this is the region just to the right (West) of M87 and will make up one of three new frames taken to add to the bottom (South) of the already large Markarian Chain mosaic.  With the M87 region added to the mosaic I will call it a day on this one – until I get the mini-WASP array up and running

I have just purchased some incredibly powerful registration software called Registar.  I played with the free download version for a few days before deciding I couldn’t live without this one and bought it today  It is really useful to put together mosaics I have been working on for a couple of years – to see where I have gaps missing, but that’s the easy stuff.  Registar will overlay frames obtained from different imaging systems so I can put Hyperstar I/H9C data together with Sky 90/M25C data together with Hyperstar III/M25C data – extremely powerful software indeed!!!  I am going to have great fun with this over the next few days.

I don’t do planets, or the Moon, as my deep-sky setup is not geared up for these.  However, last night’s Moon prompted me into action. Read the rest of this entry »