Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 94  ·  NGC 4736
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Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94, Denis Peter
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Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94, Denis Peter
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Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94

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Description

A few nights ago I decided on M94 as my target for the night, as I've had it on my list for a while and it has already moved into a pretty unfavourable position, so it will be unavailable to image for the next several months.

Little did I know what I was setting myself up for with picking this target. After processing that night's subframes the way I usually do other galaxies, the results were... well, less than spectacular, to put it lightly. It was only at that point that I realised the combination of a very bright core and a very faint outer ring will make this a very challenging one to process.

So I went back to image it on the next two nights as well to get more data, particularly for the outer ring. As this was my first time imaging the same target over multiple nights, I had to learn how to combine multi-night imaging sessions. As well as how to process high dynamic range objects without blowing them out or losing too much faint detail. I'm not completely happy with the final result, but it's still a massive improvement over what I was able to put together on my first attempt. Just feels like this galaxy needs and deserves a lot more integration time, so I'll be sure to come back to it again.

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Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94, Denis Peter