This image is an exception to my typical publication practice. Usually, I'm publishing an image shortly after capturing the data. It was resting for over six months on my file storage and actually I had forgotten about the data set until I was about to organise some images. I was capturing this object during February 2023 but the conditions weren't ideal. First of all weather was very unsteady so some of the imaging sessions ended prematurely due to incoming clouds. In addition, it wasn't during a new moon phase, although angular distance to the Moon was more than 100 degree. So, while from a darkness point of view, a night on February 12th, 2023 (excluded Moon phase) would provide about ten hours of astronomical darkness, it took me four incomplete nights to accumulate about eight hours of total integration time.

The resulting data wasn't easy for me to process and in the beginning, I never achieved a satisfactory result. After collecting dust for quite a while and rediscovering the data, I stacked the raw files using AstroPixelProcessor and did the whole post-processing workflow, starting with the integrated frames, in Affinity Photo. I hope you find the resulting image pleasing.

Now to the astronomy (or my superficial and brief summary of it). The predominant galaxy NGC 2805 is part of a group of galaxies for which NGC 2805 is also name giver or more frequently quoted as Holmberg 124. The group consists of NGC-members 2805, 2814, 2820 and Markarian 108, which is shown as IC 2458 in the annotation. The group is approximately 24 Mpc distant to Earth. The diameter of NGC 2805 is given as 43kpc [1]. The group was studied in radio wavelengths which revealed a diffuse H-I-cloud around the smaller three galaxies. The SIMBAD lists several distinct H-II regions within NGC 2805. Some of these are indicated in the raw data of the above image. Galaxies NGC 2814 and 28020 reveal a more dominant tint of red and magenta, highlighting their respective Hydrogen regions.

[1] Bosma et al., The Group of Galaxies NGC 2805-2814-2820-Markarian 108, Astron. Astrophys. 89, 345-352 (1980)

As always, fell free to drop a line or two in the comments section!

CS, Björn