NGC 6951 Galaxy amid IFN from Paris (new version with twice as much exposure time)

[Dan_Paris]

Hi,

 

NGC 6951 is a beautiful barred spiral galaxy in Cepheus, not far from the more famous Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) and from the Iris nebula. It is surrounded by IFNs, and I was surprised to see them so well on the picture despite the strong light pollution (Bortle 7/8), modest integration time (160*60sec luminance) and some high-altitude clouds.

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Dan

 

Technical data

200/800 custom Newtonian astrograph with Romano Zen optics and carbon fiber tube
AP900 CP4 mount on Losmandy HD tripod
TS 2.5" Riccardi-Wynne corrector

ASI183mm
ZWO LRGB filters
Guiding : ZWO OAG  + ASI120mm mini + AsiairV1
Luminance : 160 *60sec at -10°C
Chrominance : 20*60sec at -10°C for R and B channels, synthetic G
Darks, flats and synthetic biases
Conditions : Bortle 7/8 skies in Paris' suburbs (20km from the Eiffel tower), average seeing (2.5" after stacking), last quarter moon.
Preprocessing and stacking with Siril, processing with Pixinsight and Rawtherapee

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Dan_Paris

[orionoffelt]

Nice capture 👍

[peter shah]

that's no easy task to pull that out from your location....nicely done

[Dan_Paris]

Thanks @orionoffelt and @peter shah for your messages ! (with a very long delay I'm back from holidays...)

 

I managed to shoot more frames the day after, giving almost twice total exposure time (6h luminance overall). I also made a selection of the 120 best frames for the galactic core,  giving about 2" FWHM. 

Here is result, smoother  and with finer details than the former version (full-res image) :

This active galaxy is known for its ring-like star formation region around its core, with an apparent radius of 5 arcseconds.  This structure is quite obvious on an enlarged version of the picture :

 

 

Thanks for looking,
 

Dan

Edited August 17, 2022 by Dan_Paris