NGC 5474

[petevasey]

Magnitude 10.7 NGC 5474 is a small (4.7 arc-minutes) disturbed galaxy in Ursa Major, close to the well known Messier 101.  I browsed the 'net for images of it, and came across a beautiful rendering by Cedric Ragenaud (first image below).  On Astrobin here.  You will see that this image is almost 21 hours of data using a one-shot colour camera in France, or possibly a remote Observatory in very good skies. Most other images on the 'net are inferior.  But at my latitude this time of year it culminates almost directly overhead, so despite its relative faintness I deemed it a worthwhile target.

BUT

This 2023-24 season has had very few clear stable nights, and the end not only of April but of fully dark skies was fast approaching.  Out of three nights of trying, only one, the night of 30th April was clear enough to capture some moderately decent data.  Even then seeing was poor and there were occasional thin clouds which spoiled a number of subs.  So in the end I had to settle for 8 Luminance and 4 each RGB subs, all 10 minutes binned 2x2.  QSI683 on RC10.  So a total time of a little over three hours.  No wonder my image is a very poor relation of Cedric's beauty.  'Noisy', lacking detail and the unexpectedly faint outlying areas only just visible.  Hopefully I will be able to try again in early Spring 2025 with more time and better conditions.  We shall see .... maybe!

Cheers,  Peter

[bomberbaz]

decent effort of a seemingly difficult object with very little data.

well done

steve