NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018 (David Dearden)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sculptor (Scl) · Contains: NGC 253 · Sculptor galaxy

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NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018

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NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018

This is a pretty galaxy, but I had very poor data for this image: clouds interfered, and then so did morning. I had far too little time on the B filter. I just didn’t get enough time above the horizon for this, and it shows. On top of that, my flats were evidently not well matched so there were all kinds of nasty artifacts and gradients I had to remove. Nevertheless, I haven’t been able to get any new data to work with in a while so thought I’d go ahead and process this.

Date: 16 Nov 2018

Subject: NGC 253, Sculptor Silver Coin Galaxy

Scope: AT8IN+High Point Scientific Coma Corrector

Filters: ZWO 31 mm diameter unmounted L, R, G, B

Mount: EQ-6 (EQMOD 2.000j)+PEC

Guiding: Orion Thin Off-axis Guider + DSI IIc +PHD 2.6.5 (Win 10 ASCOM)

Camera: ASI1600MM-Cool, -20 °C, Gain 139 Offset 21

Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 3.0.3.140

Exposure: 16x180 L, 9x180 R, 9x180 G, & 3x180 B

Stacking: Deep Sky Stacker 4.1.1 (64-bit) dark+flat (no bias), κ-σ stacking with κ = 1.5 for L, R, & G; median stack for B.

Processing: StarTools 1.4.332: Software binned all subs 2x2. Aggressively vignette wiped the L, Aggressively color & vignette wiped the RGB, stretched, and HDR optimized. Deconvoluted (3 pixels) and untrack denoised the L and the RGB. Used Photoshop to do some clone stamp work on L & RGB, then also did some levels adjustments. Used GradientXterminator on the RGB (course, high). Finally combined L with RGB, did more layer-masked levels adjustments, one round of deep space noise reduction, then AstroFrame.

Original
Final
B

B

Description: Following Victor's suggestion below, same data with green cast removed, a bit more stretching of the luminance, and more aggressive noise reduction.

Uploaded: ...

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ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2437831
PixInsight job	L4TMI6UCMHL6TOUKBNZDTCIMRIT0L7IO
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	00h47m33s.52
RA (top/left)	00h45m32s.56
RA (top/right)	00h50m05s.70
RA (bottom/right)	00h49m33s.69
RA (bottom/left)	00h45m02s.79

Dec (center)	-25°16′59″.9
Dec (top/left)	-25°44′46″.8
Dec (top/right)	-25°35′34″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	-24°49′03″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	-24°58′11″.7

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NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018

NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018

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NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018

NGC 253, Sculptor "Silver Coin" Galaxy, LRGB, 16 Nov 2018

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