Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  NGC 5350  ·  NGC 5353  ·  NGC 5354  ·  NGC 5355  ·  NGC 5358
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NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68, Kevin Morefield
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NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68, Kevin Morefield
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68

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Description

From what I've found on this chain of galaxies, they are all in the range of  110-120 million light years distant.  So I'm assuming they are a local group.  What visually drew me to the group was the blazing red star that appears to be pulling the galaxies toward it.  Of course that's not what is happening, but that sort of tension makes for a more interesting photo composition.  I was also drawn by the beautiful blue spiral structure of the 5350.  If you look close you can make out long extended arms encircling the 5350.  

The brightest galaxy is NGC 5353, the lenticular galaxy below and left of the bright star.  Just above that is NGC 5354 which here we see a band of reddish dust almost vertical (look close) suggesting its rotational axis. The main galaxies are in the 11-13 magnitude range while the bright red star is magnitude 6.  Conspicuously missing is NGC 5351, which fell just past NGC 5349 in the lower left corner and thus outside of my FOV. 

I used the QHY Extended Full Well mode and 300 second exposures.  Still I had some saturated star cores.  I wasn't too concerned about  that becuase the composition I was after was of a  "blazing star".  But these saturated cores with colors encircling them produce a problem when increasing color saturation in the galaxies.  With appropriately color saturated stars, the galaxies remained colorless and, with colorful galaxies, the star colors clipped.  So I used a bright star mask when working with the color saturation.  

Below NGC 5353 there is what may be a triangle of dust.  It also may be a reflection artifact from the bright star, but I've never seen a refleciton in that shape so I'm thinking dust.

To better show the faint parts of NGC 5350,  I attempted to minimize the glow of the bright red star.  I used axial rings in DBE and manually adusted the RGB/K values up and down to flatten the outer parts of the star's halo.  This works if you aren't too agressive about it.  This is a technique Adam Block teaches to eliminate the dark ring you often get around galaxies when using DBE.  I included a screenshot so you can see what this looks like in DBE.

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Revisions

  • NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68, Kevin Morefield
    Original
  • NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68, Kevin Morefield
    C
  • Final
    NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68, Kevin Morefield
    D

C

Description: DBE to compress the bright star and better reveal the structure of NGC 5350

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D

Description: Tighter Crop

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Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 5350 Galaxy Group | Hickson Compact Group 68, Kevin Morefield

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