NGC 4274 Galaxy Group

Located 45 million light-years from Earth NGC 4274, a barred spiral Galaxy in Coma Berenices, is the namesake for the NGC 4274 Galaxy Group.  It is approximately 95,000 ly across and is characterized by it overlapping outer arms which have since formed a ring.  I don't usually show closeups but there was an amazing amount of detail, at least with my small setup, visible in the especially the dusty regions on the ring and leading into the core.  The second prominent galaxy in this group is NGC 4314 located in the upper left corner.  About the same distance at 40-50 million ly away this is also a barred spiral and has a ring as well.  This galaxy looks cool no matter what size scope you have, in fact this galaxy is why I choose this region after seeing it on Stellarium last month.  I did get more detail than I expected considering most of the other images featuring this galaxy are taken with much larger telescopes.  If you look closely at the center, bright star streams are visible.  These star streams known as its "nuclear starburst ring" and is made up of very bright young stars.  Next we have NGC 4245 on the left side which is another barred spiral galaxy with a ring,  Information regarding this galaxy was a little scarce, however, one source from Russia (https://arxiv.org/abs/1002.1386) indicated it had a chemically distinct metal rich core compared to the central bulge.  NGC 4278, NGC 4283, and NGC 4286 appear to be uneventful elliptical galaxies although NGC 4278 does have some dust features visible with the HST.

Although I was able to image this for a couple of hours or less each night due to FOV and weather conditions, I did not lose any sub-frames to poor focusing.  I used N.I.N.A. for autofocusing and monitoring focus throughout the session while still using APT for mount control and capturing.  I know it sounds crazy not just using N.I.N.A. but I know APT very well.  I did use N.I.N.A for everything including an auto-meridian flip one night and it performed very well, however, I still like the way APT works other than the focus, may be because I am so familiar with it.  For now I will continue with both.

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Wide Field

NGC 4247

NGC 4314

NGC 4245, NGC 4278, NGC 4283, NGC 4286

NGC 4274 Galaxy Group
Home Monroe, CT
Date: 4-28-20, 5-13-20, 5-20-20, 5-21-20, 5-23-20, 5-24-20, 5-25-20, 5-26-20
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805
f/7
Focal Reducer: HoTech Self-Guiding Field Flattener for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: L 167 x 90s, R 55 x 90s, G 50 x 90s, B 53 x 90s
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 11 C
Processing: APT, NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop. Lightroom.

M61 and Supernova - SN 2020jfo

This is M61 or NGC 4303, an intermediate barred spiral galaxy located approximately 52 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.  This was an unplanned object that I have to thank Hap Griffin (Imaging infinity) for alerting me as well as others in a Facebook post last week about a newly formed Supernova in M61.  Although I was working on a different deep sky object I decided to image this since they are not often visible with amateur equipment and in good locations to image them in the first place.  In this image the Supernova is the blue star and is actually the individual only extra-galactic star visible, all of the other stars are in our own Milky Way making them much closer.

It turned out to be a more interesting region than I remember and it is no wonder as I reviewed my pretty unexciting image of this region from three years ago.  The galaxy shows two loosely developed spiral arms and is estimated to be 100,000 light-years across making it similar in size to the Milky Way.  This galaxy has a high rate of star formation and it is believed to house a supermassive black-hole.  A couple of other prominent galaxies are also visible in this cropped image.

Supernova SN2020ifo was discovered May 6 and it is still glowing in brightness as of this writing.  It is classified as a Type II supernova which occurs when a supergiant star undergoes a violent collapse after a star runs out of elements which support nuclear fusion.  When fusion stops the outward pressure caused by the fusion stops and the star implodes and produces an explosion that is 100 million times brighter than the sun. Quick chem/phys lesson: gravity forces light elements in a star such as hydrogen and helium together to form heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen and such.  This is nuclear fusion and stars do fusion up to elements such as iron (26 protons).  Producing elements heavier than iron using fusion takes energy which is why fusion stops at this point.

Lastly, I have been focusing on focusing with my ZWO EAF autofocuser these last few weeks - something I should have done long ago.  One thing big that prevented the autofocuser from working the way I thought it would work was backlash. Another thing you may have noticed was my use of APT and N.I.N.A.  I am still using APT as my capture and control program, however, I am using N.I.N.A. for autofocusing and monitoring the focus throughout the imaging session.  I am happy to say that this object is the first in a long time that I did not have to trash exposures due to bad focus.  I have produced a few videos on my efforts with autofocusing.
Video 1 - Manual Focus Graph: https://youtu.be/it_rdLEW50M
Video 2 - Backlash (ZWO Method): https://youtu.be/Q9s36vb1FWU
Video 3 - Autofocus Routine with NINA: https://youtu.be/dZ0poUNz3_w

M61 and Supernove - SN 2020ifo

Home Monroe, CT
Date: 5-9-20, 5-10-20, 5-13-20
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805
f/7
Focal Reducer: HoTech Self-Guiding Field Flattener for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: L 62 x 90s, R 41 x 90s, G 41 x 90s, B 41 x 90s
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 5 C
Processing: APT, NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

The Eyes are looking at M86 and M84

This gorgeous group of galaxies is located in the constellation of Virgo.  Virgo contains a cluster of 2000 galaxies know as the Virgo Cluster.  The heart of this galaxy cluster is some 50-70 million light-years making it the closest galaxy cluster to our own Local Group.  Not to be confusing but the Local Group and the Virgo Cluster are part of a much larger system named the Virgo Supercluster at 110 million light-years across.  This image shows a portion of a string of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain, named after Armenian Astronomer Benjamin Markarian.  

The two most prominent galaxies, M84 on the left and M86 in the center, are elliptical in nature.  The third most prominent feature is a pair of interacting galaxies, NGC 4435 & NGC 4438, aptly named The Eyes (Arp 120).  Numerous other galaxies of all types are visible in this image - some showing neat dust lanes and such.

The last time I did Markarian's Chain was three-years ago almost to the day and it was of the whole Chain since I used the smaller telescope, thus the FOV was much larger (Link).   

I thought I was being clever looking on Stellarium for things to image with my FOV and deciding to keep this orientation with The Eyes on the right side rather than usual left side. During processing I looked on Astrobin and discovered several people already did this orientation including one by Gary Imm (Link).  

Which leads me into the second point, I would have been done with this a few days earlier, however, Gary posted his highly sought after processing outline so I went back as I was not happy with what I originally produced anyway - many thanks to Gary.  As a result I finally used deconvolution in PI successfully.

The only regret I have is I really wish I collected more data for this one.  You can say that about most images but this one really would have benefited with a few more hours at least. I am happy with how it turned out and it is much better than my image from three years ago. 

M86, M84, and The Eyes (Markarian's Chain)
Home Monroe, CT
Date: 4-22-20, 4-24-20
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805
f/7
Focal Reducer: HoTech Self-Guiding Field Flattener for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: L 121 x 60s, R 40 x 90s, G 28 x 90s, B 41 x 90s (4.7 hrs)
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 4 C
Processing: APT, NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, Lightroom.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1