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.
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1
Wide Field
NGC 4247
NGC 4314
NGC 4245, NGC 4278, NGC 4283, NGC 4286
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.
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