Chasing the little blob....first light

[pyrasanth]

When I was photographing M81 & M82 with the Celestron RASA & being a very wide field it captured most of the neighboring galaxies & whilst the smallest ones at the low image scale showed some detail one object sprung out with tiny fuzzy details- it looked an interesting prospect for a revisit. It was plate solved as NGC  2976. This is quite a difficult object for me. It is small & would require a larger image scale than the RASA to see any appreciable detail. I decided this was a good test for the returned Celestron C11. I used the focal reducer to get a FL of just under 2 meters at F7

The seeing was not brilliant but its a fair effort considering the sky was a bit hazy. I've posted 2 versions- one is a bit more vibrant. The camera was an Atik 460 1x1 binning with 15 8 minute exposures in each channel (No L yet- its dirty & I'm working on the channel).

Let me know what you think- it's certainly not Palomar standard & I intend to review when the seeing is better as I like the Galaxy for some strange reason!

 

[laudropb]

Very good capture.

[theo]

Lovely work. I prefer the less blue colour of the first image and the detail looks good for a challenging target. Well done.

 

Pete.

[Daniel-K]

thats a very neat looking galaxy.  you can see two HA regions on the outer edge of the disc. great capture.

[pyrasanth]

Thanks for the encouragement. I've not added the L channel yet so I need to look at that. I will re-post when I've added the L channel.

[pyrasanth]

39 minutes ago, Daniel-K said:

thats a very neat looking galaxy.  you can see two HA regions on the outer edge of the disc. great capture.

I'm drawn to this galaxy & I don't know why but it really interests me. We all spend time imaging the great spirals bit I bet there's a lot of unsung targets waiting for our camera's!

[pyrasanth]

I have now processed the L layer onto the stack & the result is below. Let me know what you think! (I'm sure you will anyway!)

The image details are below should anybody wish to have a go. I will try & better this when I get better seeing conditions

Celestron C11 at F7

Baader LRGB filters Atik 460 EX 1x1 binning 15x 8 minute subs in each channel total 8 hours exposure

Processed in PixInsight, Ccdstack & Photoshop CS6

 

[astroman001]

A galaxy far far away, great to see this as a target not just in the background.

Peter