Saturn Galaxy?

[petevasey]

I first came across the interesting magnitude 10.5 galaxy NGC 4274 in Coma Berenices when browsing Skymap Pro in early March 2021 for proposed targets in that area already on my 'Must do' list. The Skymap image shown here (the monochrome one) immediately made me think 'Saturn Galaxy' and I resolved to try and image it.

Unfortunately as has been the case most of this season, the weather did not play fair, and a couple of aborted sessions followed, completely ruined by haze and clouds although a short clearance on 21st March allowed me to collect the star field around NovaCas 2021. But eventually the night of 3rd. April started out clear, and I was able to proceed.

Even though the sky appeared clear, and I had a full 6 hours of imaging time, disappointingly many of the earlier subs had unexpectedly high background levels probably due to thin haze and I had to discard more than half of them. So ended up with Luminance 11 x 10 minutes binned 2x2, RGB each 4 x 10 minutes binned 2x2.  QSI683 on RC10 with SX AO unit.

Cheers,

Peter

Edited April 5, 2021 by petevasey
Added link to NovaCas

[Martin Meredith]

Added to my (EEVA) observing list! This is a beautiful example of its type with some interesting stellar contrasts in the surrounding field. 

Martin

[Hallingskies]

Not seen that one before, nicely done.  SkyMap Pro is just brilliant for browsing for targets, isn't it?