20220309 - M106 - An intermediate spiral galaxy, in a neighbourhood playground with other galaxies
What’s in the picture(s) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_106Quote: “
Messier 106 (also known as
NGC 4258) is an
intermediate spiral galaxy in the
constellationCanes Venatici. It was discovered by
Pierre Méchain in 1781. M106 is at a distance of about 22 to 25 million
light-years away from
Earth. M106 contains an
active nucleus classified as a
Type 2 Seyfert, and the presence of a central
supermassive black hole has been demonstrated from
radio-wavelength observations of the rotation of a
disk of molecular gas orbiting within the inner
light-year around the black hole.”
What was the experience
M106 is an intermediate spiral Galaxy that seems perhaps less known compared to M31, M33, but nonetheless a quite important and visually interesting DSO, especially given the proximity of some other smaller galaxies in the frame.
Although this was captured in the same session as the Whale and the Hockey stick (previous post), the data captured seemed very much tainted by light pollution and a background haze, and artefacts that didn’t get easily resolved with the flats.
Blending in the Ha seems to offset the colour balance, as the Ha seems so over-powering. Not entirely happy with how the starfield turned out. I had a 2nd processing pass, but couldn’t bring this to a better result.
How it was done
Scope: TS140 APO (FL 910mm)
Mount: CEM70G
Camera: ASI2600MM Pro
Photons: 20220306-07-08-09 LRGB 180s 98x 31x 35x 34x Ha 300s 18x 1!:24
Processing: PixInsight (Mac)
What have I learned from this
I had processed this one already some time ago, but was holding off in posting it. Although M106 looks decent enough, I’m less happy about the surrounding area and the starfield. Some bright stars that ended up a bit over-blown in the processing. Reasonably happy with this … but I may want to revisit this one 😎
Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭
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