M82, Cigar Galaxy, 4 Jan 2013 (David Dearden)

M82, Cigar Galaxy, 4 Jan 2013

M82 is relatively easy to find because it is bright and near M81, and both show up easily in the guider field of view. Another extremely cold night. I had trouble getting my USB repeater working and even had to take a heat gun to the tracking motor control before it would come on. But everything seems to be working OK now. CCD is at -14 °C. Guiding on 1 s intervals instead of my usual 1.5 s. Extremely good guiding performance, at least here at the start. There was some uncharacteristic bad performance in Dec from time to time, probably stiction from the cold, plus my polar alignment was perhaps “too good.”

In this revision of the 4 Jan 2013 data I have reprocessed with star average white balance. This gives a more neutral background and a more objective basis for the colors.

Date: 4 Jan 2013

Subject: M82, Cigar Galaxy

Scope: AT8IN+High Point Scientific coma corrector spaced properly

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.0

Camera: DSI IIc (no chiller, T = -14 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.2, no dither

Exposure: 41/62 x 300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: Neb 3 crop and auto color, saturation boost 0.3. StarTools 1.3 Wipe:Color (cap green to brown), Develop, HDR:core reveal, Deconvolute (2.5), Track, Magic:Shrink, Life:Moderate w/ saturation boost,. CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase Star Color, Color Blotch Reduction, AstroFrame.

Final
Original
B

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