Spiral Galaxy Caldwell 101 - Adam Lundie - Eatons Hill Observatory

Spiral Galaxy Caldwell 101

11-Jul-2016
Spiral Galaxy Caldwell 101 thumbnail
Spiral Galaxy Caldwell 101
Caldwell 101 is a spiral galaxy about 31 million light-years away, tilted towards our line of sight. It is thought to be one of the most Milky Way-like spiral galaxies in our immediate vicinity. It also has at least one distorted companion galaxy similar to the Magellanic Clouds.

Image:

  • 54x 600s Luminance bin1x1 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 25x 300s Red bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 24x 300s Green bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 24x 300s Blue bin2x2 + 20 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias

Total exposure 15 hours 5 minutes.

Hardware:

  • Celestron EdgeHD 1100
  • SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
  • Celestron 0.7x EdgeHD focal reducer
  • QSI 683-ws Camera @ -15°C
  • Astronomik Typ 2c LRGB filters
  • Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
  • Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
  • Starlight Xpress Adaptive Optics
  • Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II

Location:

  • Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)

Software:

  • Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
  • Captured with AstroArt 6
  • Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
  • CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
  • CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack, deconvolution, combine RGB.
  • Photoshop CC: Reduce noise, high pass filter, minimum filter, curves, combine L+RGB, color balance.

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