NGC 5746

[petevasey]

This mag 10.5 edge on galaxy in Virgo is quite low for UK observers, but worth attention particularly because of it's similarity to big brother NGC891.  Last night (9th April) was forecast to be clear, but as is the way of things it wasn't free of clouds until almost midnight, so 1 1/2 hours of imaging time lost.  Then a couple of problems lost another half hour - a mysterious extra diffraction spike appeared on the first couple of images, so I stopped the run and searched for a source,   A floating bit of tape (from the secondary dew heater lead) was removed and that seemed to do the trick.  Then I refocused before continuing.  So a little short of data but happy enough with the result except for the substantial glow from the nearby 3.7 magnitude 109 Virginis.  Dark nights are soon  history for a few months, I may revisit this now, but with different framing to lose that bright glow.  Or crop the image.  Or just leave it as it is for artistic effect 😉

Anyway, QSI683wsg with SX AO unit on RC10.  Luminance 11 x 10 minutes, RGB each 4 x 10 minutes all binned 2x2

Cheers,

Peter

Edited April 10, 2021 by petevasey