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| Top left, super giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 plus lots of ionised interstellar gas and dark dust on show in this stacked image captured with the Observatory's Canon 600d DSLR on a Star Adventurer EQ mount. The images were taken at ISO800 and f=35mm. Credit: Pip Stakkert. |
"The data for this image has been archived for some time and when Pip set about processing it he noticed that the shape of many of the stars was elongated rather than the theoretical point they should present as. This can happen for a number of reasons, which include: inaccurate polar alignment of the EQ mount, inaccurate tracking, optical defects and atmospheric issues.
Some of these 'Slivers' of light were indeed galaxies, a long way away and viewed edge on, but some actual stars appeared elliptical. As you can imagine elliptical stars would not do for our Pip. Indeed this problem was giving Pip 'sleepless nights'!
The excellent Professor Morison in his equally excellent 'Astronomy Digest', brought our attention to some AI based software 'StarFixer' currently being trialled on line. The above image is the result of applying 'StarFixer' to our data. All the Team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory thought this software delivered a considerable improvement.
I nice feature of this image is the two smudges of cojoined light bottom left, which are the gravitationally interacting spiral galaxies NGC4567 and NGC4568 , which are also known as the Butterfly Galaxies.
I really like this image as every tiny smudge of light you can see represents millions if not trillions of stars over 60 million light years distant. Just think for a moment. Light travels at approximately 300 million metres per second or 671million miles per hour! So distances measured in light travelling for millions of years are enormous beyond comprehension!". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory
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