SCT imagers: Please share your "rarely imaged deep sky objects"!

rhedden avatar
Dear SCT imagers:

As owners of larger aperture telescopes that can image at long focal lengths, we can produce images of many deep sky objects that are difficult to image with other telescope designs.  This discussion is a place to link your image of the "rarely seen" deep sky objects such as smaller galaxies, small or faint planetary nebulae, extremely distant globular clusters, etc.  You deserve extra credit if your image is the "only image on Astrobin" for the object in question.

I am just starting the thread, so I will let someone else go first.   smile
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Riedl Rudolf avatar
Its a good idea! Such very small targets (GC, PN, etc) are often overlooked and rarely photographed. Planets are great looking the bigger the scope, but DS is most of the time just a tiny lightpatch on screen. Gary Imm e. g. is a specialist for such small targets!
Gary Imm avatar
rhedden - Like Rudi, I appreciate the intent of your post above.  But it seems to me that a long discussion thread with lots of links is not going to be very easy to sort through and use, nor will it last long term.  Wouldn't it be better to setup a new Public Group, something like "SCT - Rarely Imaged Small Objects"?  That way all of the submitted images show up as thumbnails and are easy to review.

There already are groups for "SCT images" and "First on Astrobin" images, but yours would serve a slightly different purpose.
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Riedl Rudolf avatar
I think Garys proposal makes sense!
rhedden avatar
Maybe Gary can start the group.  I started this group several years ago, and it's a really broad topic.  I'll be the first person to join if one of you sets up "Rarely Imaged Objects."  Let me add one more suggestion: let's not limit it to SCTs, so that other imagers can join in.

Serious question:  should we discourage widefield images that contain dozens of objects?  I think the point of such a group would be to post photos of single DSOs that are rarely seen, and preferably close-ups.  smile

This group could be great for getting "likes" on your small PNs, galaxies,  etc. that do not attract much attention on the Big Wall.  Otherwise, I fear that people end up deleting their images when they get ignored in favor of bigger, brighter objects.
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Riedl Rudolf avatar
In general there will be always much less likes on these small objects. These are special pictures not intented to get a lot of likes. We should not limit it to any scope. Distant galaxy cluster can be a target as well as single or multible galaxies as long as they are considered to be small. What is small? Less than 3 to 5 arcmin each??
Gary Imm avatar
OK, I started the group -
https://www.astrobin.com/groups/221/
rhedden avatar
Thanks, Gary!  Looking forward to having this group available.
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