Scope: C8 f/3.2; Location:
Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert, CA; 7 May 2005; Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 16 x 90 sec and 16 x 24 sec Luminance exposures with IR Block Filter;
12 x 60 sec RGB
Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools 2. Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in
IRIS. Channels were co-registered in IRIS. LRGB Channels were
resized to 800x600 prior to LRGB combine. Luminance and Color FITS were combined in Photoshop with Luminance Layering.
This image was aggressively processed to bring out faint aspects of the spiral
arms. The object was lassoed and stretched separately. Some star repair
was performed on the brighter stars to reduce bloat. Color balancing and final touches in
Photoshop (including background noise subtraction on the Luminance master). SGBNR (PixInsight LE) was used to smooth
remaining background noise on the luminance channel and the final result. Very
light Richardson-Lucy de-convolution was applied to the luminance channel and
re-blended with the original luminance prior to LRGB
combine. Final size approximately 800x600.
This image was a guided image. North is up. The view of this galaxy reveals some
delicate spiral arms. It is located in the constellation of Canes Venatici about
38 million light years distant. Horizontal FOV is about 27'
Image Center is
approximately Equatorial 2000: RA: 13h 13m 28s Dec: +36°35'36"
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