With a new moon and ideal sky conditions, this was a good night to go after a new target galaxy. Also, since this one is relatively small, it is a good target for using the coma corrector. So this was a first-time observation of this galaxy. This time I set the scope up using the 35 mm extender, which allowed me to lock everything in tight and square and to retract the focuser. I had some trouble with the focus shifting early in the session, probably as the mirror cooled down, but after that both focus and guiding were very good. This galaxy has faint outer arms that became visible after the subs were stacked; I was happy to see these. The color came out redder than I expected, so I added some red bias reduction to the defaults, but it’s still quite red. I may want to pull the red down some more.
Date: 7 Mar 2016
Subject: NGC 3344, face-on spiral galaxy in Leo Minor
Scope: AT8IN + High Point Scientific 2” Coma Corrector
Filter: Baader Planetarium UHC-S
Mount: EQ-6 (EQMOD)
Guiding: Orion ST-80 + Antares 0.5x focal reducer + DSI Ic + PHD 2.6.1.1 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc, no chiller CCD 4 °C
Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 2.4.3.25 with Nebulosity 4.0.4 ASCOM camera driver
Exposure: 30x600 s
Stacking: Neb 4, bad pixel map, bias included, 33 flats, CMYG nebula filter, match histograms, trans+rot align, Deep Sky Stacker 1.5σ κ-σ stack without drizzle.
Processing: StarTools 1.4.305: Crop; Wipe; Develop: 89.61%; HDR
ptimize; Color:Scientific, 200% saturation, red bias reduce at 1.21; Deconvolute: 2.7 pix; Track: Smoothness 87%, 4.5 pix; Magic, shrink 1 pix. Photoshop CS6 + Astronomy Tools: Deep space noise reduction; Increase star color; layer-masked Levels to reduce some remaining gradient; saturation boost; Liquify/pucker on brighter stars; Astroframe.
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