Whale and Stick Galaxies are old friends...was one of the first galaxies I work back in 2022 (see https://www.astrobin.com/rhfutw/E/) but for some reason I miss a folder with a whole series of sessions when I processed those in that time. With this work at least I complete that project but wait...I hope get back on this pair with an OTA that is waiting since two years get pointed out to the sky...

I saw the Whale Galaxy for the first time when I was looking in Simbad for something...We got hocked by his peculiar form and of course the Stick follow it.

The transient event captured in the session of May 2021 ATLAS21dfy (AT2021biy) (https://www.astrobin.com/rhfutw/E/#rC) is not present in the sessions of January 2022.

This time I did a severe selection of the frames due a one session Maurizio did in Bortle 4 in a mountain place and compared with those done in the backyard I really want to get or pull out more details of the galaxies.

I did base stars and a base galaxies with the best session, and then a second stack with the best 50% of all sessions. Worked separately and then combined together.

This time all the stacks was done on DSS and I did not used Siril for a third stack.  I was ok with the results obtained.

While I was processing the base for the stars I found that doing an extra arcsin curve I could pull out more the tiny galaxies of the background.  I have to deal with the noise later but NoiseExterminator really did a good job letting a nice background and preserve well the details of those galaxies even the stars! I was surprised a bit.

In Ps was used unsharp mask and smart sharp, Topaz denoise and in CamRaw, clear, dehaze, white, masked sharp and luminance. For the stars it was apply Match Color for enhanced them and the galaxies.

I think this work went ok.  The galaxies show a bit more details than the one processed in 2022 but of course I would like to see more using the Triad filter for get more the Ha that is around the Whale, so I hope reach one day that acomplishment.  The 'Original is the fullframe that was imaged, no crop at all.

Thanks for visiting us and have all Clear Skies.

Processed March 2024.

https://twitter.com/AstroOtus/status/1771206994470314490