M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy (John Hayes)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: M 94 · NGC 4736

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M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy

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M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy

I started on M94 when I first got my modified 6D and it has been on my "unfinished business list for nearly a year. M94 is pretty bright but it's not very colorful and it sits in a moderately un-colorful local area of the sky. However, if you scan the image up close, there are galaxies everywhere! Overall, I was a bit surprised by the difficulty of getting a good image. I managed to assemble this image from a grand total of about 52 x 600 second subs take over about a week. Once I had the data, I found processing to be a significant challenge. First, I changed the color balance in my camera during this run (that was a bad idea!) Second, the low brightness outer halo combined with super bright core and the low contrast spiral arms made this a tough processing task. As I worked to get the color under control, the blue/purple central area emerged and I was delighted to see that feature in other images I've seen floating around the web. In hindsight, this galaxy is pretty big and it would have been a great subject to shoot with the f/7 focal reducer. I always appreciate any C&C so feel free to tell me how I could make it better.

John

Cloudy Nights

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	640168
PixInsight job	HIBP998K7NX4NLTBGD5J6D16CR8G3DBL
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	12h50m46s.819
RA (top/left)	12h49m18s.897
RA (top/right)	12h50m50s.495
RA (bottom/right)	12h52m14s.639
RA (bottom/left)	12h50m43s.243

Dec (center)	+41°06′39″.16
Dec (top/left)	+41°12′31″.57
Dec (top/right)	+40°49′07″.74
Dec (bottom/right)	+41°00′42″.58
Dec (bottom/left)	+41°24′11″.80

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M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy

M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy

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M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy

M94, The Cat's Eye Galaxy

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