By the time I read about this "lost" galaxy in Charles Bracken's book "The Astrophotography Planner," it was much too late in the 2023 galaxy season for me to start collecting 10-15 hours worth of data on such a hazy, dim target.  In May it was raining much of the time, but I got lucky in mid-June - we had two clear nights with no moon and no Canadian wildfire smoke!  At the last minute, I decided to set up the old LX200 SCT and go for it.   My heart sank when I realized how short a window of time I had to image it.  By the time the sky became dark enough to start collecting data (≈10:30 pm), I had only 2 hours before it dropped below the trees along on the western horizon.   In the end, all I could collect was 32 decent frames the first night and 41 the next, all at 180sec exposure. 

Data were collected using a ZWO ASI294MC camera (pixel size = 4.63µm) and UV-IR Cut filter.  The camera was rotated -60° (CCW) to frame the galaxy horizontally.  When coupled with an LX200 scope with focal reducer (focal length 1426.6mm), the ASI294 camera produces images with a resolution of 0.669 arcsec/px.  Not very good, but good enough for this beginner.  With a pitifully short integration time of only 3½ hours, I thought the results would be terrible.   But the data looked somewhat decent in their raw linear state (see below).   After stretching and increasing contrast and color saturation, I was excited to see the barred spiral arms and little galaxies in the margins. This image needs 20-24 more hours of data, but I thought I'd share it anyway.  I hope you image this galaxy too!



Figure 1.  Image in its linear state, after using GraXpertAI to remove background gradients and the BlurXTerminator deconvolution tool (settings: 0% sharpening 0%halos, 5.76PSF, correct first) to improve star shape and galaxy details.  73 frames x 180s (3 hrs 39 mins integration time).  FWHM: 5.765px    Ec: 53.1%.