Highly enlarged from the original wide field image these close ups frame the detailed
dust lane that crosses the bar of NGC 1365 as well as knotts and festoons of stars
and nebulae throughout the inner spiral arms. The image on the left was taken with
the ESO's 8m class Very Large Telescope at their Paranal site in Chile and reveals
faint details that can also be found in the image on the right, including very
distant background galaxies visible through the arms of NGC 1365 itself!

AP152 F7.5 Starfire APO + FLI ProLine11002 CCD & CFW-2-7
LRGB = 200 30 30 30min Astronomik filters**
-35C chip temp, darks and flats (AstroHandy LightRing used for flats)
12MPPS download speed = 1.5sec/full frame download at bin 1X1.
Focal Length: 1300mm
Image scale = 1.4"/pix
Guide Camera: Starlightxpress SXVH9

Taken from Bob and Pats farm in good seeing
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/107700957/original

Some links to equipment used to take this image:

Finger Lakes Instrumentation (FLI) CCD cameras and equipment:
http://www.flicamera.com/

StarlightXpress CCD cameras and equipment
http://www.starlight-xpress.co.uk/

Astro-Elecronic FS2 scope GOTO controller:
http://www.astro-electronic.de/

Gerd Neumann/Astronomik filters:
http://www.gerd.neumann.net/

http://www.astronomik.com/

MSB Software & Astroart 4
http://www.msb-astroart.com/

STAR Atlas:PRO planetarium software
http://www.skylab.com.au/

AstroHandy Accessories
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/astrohandy_lightring

http://www.astrohandy.com