Arp 286 (NGC 5566, NGC 5569, & NGC 5560)

Arp 286 is made up of three interacting galaxies, NGC 5560, NGC 5566, and NGC 5569 located approximately 80 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. NGC 5566 is a barred spiral galaxy and the largest of the trio at 150,000 light-years in diameter. It has a very distinct dust lane on the upper portion and to travel with one of the broad arms. This galaxy has a yellow tint while its closest and smallest neighbor, NGC 5569, has blue tint. NGC 5560 has a yellow core and blue outer portion.

I imaged this about a month ago while it was in a good location for me. I found this object while searching Stellarium and ironically I saw that Michael Feigenbaum had just posted a fabulous version of this object. I am happy with how my version turned out although there is not as much detail as I had seen on other versions. I only collected RGB data but wish I would have collected some Hydrogen. Also, this happens to correspond to when the Alberta smoke began to affect our skies so my next few images may be iffy.

Arp 286 (NGC 5566, NGC 5569, & NGC 5560)  
Dates: 5-17-23, 5-18, 5-25
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native), 1400mm
F/10 (native), F/7
Focal Reducer: Celestron 0.7 Reducer Lens
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: Optolong Luminosity
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Orion ST80
Exposure: Lum 277 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 0
Temp: 0 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXT, NoiseXT, StarX

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M53 & NGC5053 (2023)

M53 (also known as NGC 5024) is a globular cluster located in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It is approximately 60,000 light-years away from us and ironically the same distance away from the center of the Milky Way. The metal poor cluster is dominated by blue and yellow stars. Metal-poor clusters are composed mostly of first generation stars (stars that are still burning their original light elements such as hydrogen and helium). The other feature in this image is NGC 5023, also a metal-poor globular cluster but much more diffuse. It is very close to M53 and is believed to have interacted with it in the past.

The other stars in this field of view are quite colorful. Located in the upper right corner is the very far spiral galaxy IC 857 along with some other interacting galaxies (IC 858 and IC 859) just below.

I find processing globular clusters particularly difficult but they are fun to do anyway. Capturing this object was pretty interesting as the sky conditions have been particularly iffy due to Canadian wildfires. First there were the Alberta fires which were affecting the transparency when some of this data was collected so I had to trash some of the data. Most recently we have been dealing with actual smoke from much closer wildfires in Quebec - the smell is pretty bad but the red sun at noon looks pretty cool.

M53 & NGC5053 (2023)
Dates: 5-9-23, 5-10, 5-11
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO
EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: None, ZWO R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: None 68 x 60, R 90 x 90, G 41 x 90, B 64 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator.

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M63 (2023)

Messier 63 (a.k.a. M63, NGC 5055, or the Sunflower Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. At approximately 30 million light-years away and 100 thousand across the galaxy contains a central disc surrounded by many short spiral arm segments. It is part of the M51 Group, a group of galaxies that also includes M51 (the 'Whirlpool Galaxy'). Also of note, in 1971, a supernova with a magnitude of 11.8 appeared in one of the arms. The spiral nature of the arms appears to be discontinuous and loose in visible light so it is also considered a flocculent galaxy.

This is a very popular image among astrophotographers so it may be surprising that it is only the second time I imaged this, the first time was an unimpressive attempt from over six years ago. As usual I have three different versions differing mainly in the color and not which is the best. However, I believe this version highlights the fine detail the best. I find these larger galaxies particularly challenging to process due to the color varitions.

I did not collect any hydrogen data but I wish I would have plenty of rich star forming Ha regions in this galaxy. One thing that I did not capture are some newly detected very faint arc star streams believed to be remnents of satellite galaxies distorted by tidal forces. To capture this a faster scope along with darker site would be required or highly recommended.  

I had to trash 120 exposures (one night's worth of data) due to smoke from wildfires in Alberta. Lastly, I seemed to have improved my star shapes by loosing and tightening the screws holding the dew heater ring which may have been pinching the corrector plate.

M63 (2023)
Dates: 5-9-23, 5-10, 5-11, 5-14
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native), 1400mm
F/10 (native), F/7
Focal Reducer: Celestron 0.7 Reducer Lens
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: Optolong Luminosity
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Orion ST80
Exposure: Lum 383 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 0
Temp: 0 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXT, NoiseXT, StarX, Bill's Color Masks

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NGC 3521 (2023)

This is my version of NGC 3521, a very cool looking spiral galaxy in Leo. I decided to go after this object like I choose most of my objects and that is searching Stellarium. It is a decent size which was important since I was using the AT115 refractor rather than the Edge800. It is 35 million light-years away and 50,000 light-years across. It is quite colorful with pink star-forming regions as well as blue clusters. I was very surprised with the flocculent nature surrounding the core as well as some of the other finer structures in the arms. The other unusual feature of NGC 3521 is that it sits inside fainter bubble-like shells. These shells are believed to be tidal debris from satellite galaxies that have merged with NGC 3521 long ago.

I did crop this image to get a closer view but not too far as I really like the colorful starfield. The better shaped stars are the benefit of the refractor over the SCT but of course you lose out in focal length. Several small galaxies can be spied on in the background as well which is another reason for not cropping too much.

NGC 3521 (2023)
Dates: 4-12-23, 4-13, 4-17, 4-20, 4-21, 4-24, 4-25
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO
EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: None, ZWO R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: None 132 x 90, R 94 x 90, G 82 x 90, B 72 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, Bill Blanshan Masks.

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NGC 4725 & NGC 4712 (2023)

Although these galaxies appear close, they are actually quite far apart. NGC 4725 is the closest galaxy at 40 million light-years away and happens to be the smaller one even though it appears larger. It is a barred spiral galaxy over 100 thousand light-years across. Interestingly, the galaxy only has one large arm that makes 2-1/2 revolutions around the core. The arm has many prominent blue regions indicating newborn star clusters. The smaller galaxy, NGC 4712, is larger than NGC 4725 in actual size at 150,000 light-years across but is over 200 million light-years away. I decided to image this by doing a random search on Stellarium and thought it would make a good project with my C8. Ironically, I found many other people that I follow also doing this object - great minds think alike.

There appears to be many smaller galaxies in this Field of View which is not surprising given the location in the constellation of Coma Berenices, a region of space rich in galaxies. NGC 4725 had a surprising amount of detail as did NGC 4712. The central dust lanes are really quite visible and even the faint ones near the core. The colors were fairly easy to pull out without much adjustment, however, that made not going overboard with color saturation difficult especially for me since I tend to saturate to the fullest extent. With this in mind I held back and attempted not to oversaturate.

NGC 4725 & NGC 4712 (2023)
Dates: 4-12-23, 4-13, 4-19, 4-20, 4-25
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native), 1400mm
F/10 (native), F/7
Focal Reducer: Celestron 0.7 Reducer Lens
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: Optolong Luminosity
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Orion ST80
Exposure: Lum 475 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 0
Temp: 0 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXT, NoiseXT, StarX, Bill's Color Masks

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Sh2-284 (2023) - Colorized SHO w/ RGB Stars

This is my version of the emission nebula Sh2-284 (also known as LBN 983 & LBN 984). Sh2-284 is a star forming region of gas and dust located in the constellation Monoceros approximately 15,000 light-years from the Earth. I really like the edges of the main portion as there are several "elephant trunk" formations - huge pillars of gas and dust that stretch into the central portion of the nebula. My favorite is the pillar located on the bottom which resembles a forefinger of a hand pointing upwards to the stars in the center of the nebula. These pillars are formed by the intense radiation and stellar winds from the very hot stars of the open cluster designated Dolidze 25. The cluster is very young at about 3 to 4 million years and is responsible for clearing a central void in the surrounding nebula. Overall the nebula is approximately 150 light-years across.

I was really happy about imaging this as it was somewhat low in a location where I had a limited window. Nine nights of imaging began February 21 and ended on March 26. My new Antlia 3nm filters were used capturing the Ha and OIII narrowband data. Processing was fun and a bit tedious as I did it using the normal SHO combining methods but simultaneously using the Colorized SHO processing method (colorize OIII to blue, SII to yellow-red, and Ha to gold and then combine them using Pixel Math). This was only the second time I used this method and I wanted to ensure the base image was at least as good or better than the normal method. Interestingly, they were similar in color, however, the Colorized version did seem slightly better so I went with it. I am pretty happy with the results and think it is quite interesting how inside the OIII inside the gold-red ring is a turquoise color where the OIII outside the ring is deeper blue.

Sh2-284 (2023) - Colorized SHO w/ RGB Stars

Dates: 2-21-23, 2-24, 2-26, 3-8, 3-9, 3-16, 3-19, 3-20, 3-26

Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO
EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: Antlia Ha, OIII; ZWO R, G, B, SII
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 77 x 300, OIII 65 x 300, SII 55 x 300, R 32 x 60, G 20 x 60, B 30 x 60
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: -20 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, Bill Blanshan Masks.

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On the Border (Perseus & Cassiopeia)!

Amazing what can be captured in 22 minutes in Bortle 3.5-4.0 skies at 7600 ft (2300 m). This is another image from just outside of Santa Fe taken with my Canon nifty fifty camera lens. The nifty fifty is actually a 50mm f/1.8 prime lens and it is surprisingly good for medium to wide field astrophotography especially considering the price. In this image are lots of star clusters, emission nebulae, and dark nebulae. The highlights for clusters is the Double Cluster (NGC 869 & 884) in the center but many others are scattered throughout such as the Lawnmower (NGC 663), Yin-Yang (NGC 659), Fuzzy Butterfly (NGC 654), and Dragonfly (NGC 457). Two gorgeous emission nebulae, The Heart (IC 1805) and Soul (IC 1848) are just north of the Double Cluster. In addition to these emission nebulae, there are a few very dark regions composed of molecular gas and dust, these are the dark nebulae.

I really like how it came out but I would have been able to pickup more photons had I set to a lower f-stop than f/4 (I forgot to change it), however, the stars probably better shaped because the high f-stop.

On the Border (Perseus & Cassiopeia)!

Camera: Canon T3i/600d modified
Telescope: Canon 50mm f/1.8 Lens

Aperture: f/4
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 50mm
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: iOptron Skyguider Pro
Filter Wheel/Drawer: none
Filter: none
Focuser: none
Autoguiding: none
Exposure: 22 x 60
Gain/ISO: 1600
Processing: PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator
GradientXTerminator, BTX.

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