Imaging telescope or lens:Takahashi FSQ-106 ED
Imaging camera:Starlight Xpress SX-814 Trius Monochrome CCD
Mount:Sky-Watcher EZ-EQ6 GT
Guiding camera:Starlight-XPress Lodestar Autoguider
Software:Main Sequence Software Sequence Generator Pro, Pleiades Astrophoto PIXINSIGHT 1.8, Photoshop CS6
Filters:Astrodon L-NIR, Blue, Green, Red
Accessories:Starlight Xpress SX 'Maxi wheel', Lakeside Astro Motor Focus System, Starlight Instruments FTF3545B-A Focuser
Resolution: 6382x5166
Dates: March 13, 2016
Frames:
Blue: 52x453" bin 1x1
Green: 54x369" bin 1x1
Astrodon L-NIR: 46x1865" bin 1x1
Red: 57x363" bin 1x1
Integration: 41.7 hours
Avg. Moon age: 5.03 days
Avg. Moon phase: 26.01%
Mean SQM: 18.60
Astrometry.net job: 1545443
RA center: 194.966 degrees
DEC center: 27.892 degrees
Pixel scale: 0.718 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: 179.988 degrees
Field radius: 0.819 degrees
Locations: The Hills Observatory, Manchester, United Kingdom
ACO 1656 in the Coma Cluster is a great place to see how many galaxies you can capture in one image. I have counted over 3000 in this image which is incredible when you consider where it was taken from. Note: I counted by dividing the image up into 100 segments and counting galaxies I could see in 10 of those segments at random and multiplying by 10.
Most of the exposures were taken with an Astrodon NIR filter (Near Infra Red), this allows me to take quite long subs, (30min) and is a great way of going deep when imaging galaxies as you can reach those that have red shifted a bit as well. NIR tolerates light polluted skies, but I tend to not image in NIR during periods of bright Moon light.
Mixed exposures were used and are shown as the average sub length for each filter. Taken between Jan 2015 and March 2016 on 20 nights.
For those people who saw this image during a lecture I gave to the Manchester Astronomical Society in Feb this year, this is a completely re-processed image right back to calibration as I was not happy with the first result.
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