NGC 891 is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 million light years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is commonly classed as an unbarred spiral galaxy but studies of the dynamics of moleclar hydrogen indicate the presence of a bar. It is considered to be very similar to the Milky Way and to look very much the way that the Milky Way would appear if viewed edge-on [1].
The image was over three nights in January, the first using the Atik one 6.0 and the other two a ZWO 1600 mm. The combination of the Atik's smaller sensor and the narrow FOV of the RC8 (FL 1600 mm) made plate solving difficult in parts of the sky with fewer stars, leading to the change to the larger sensor camera.
I wasn't happy with the original processing, which was largely a dark brown with poor details. After processing several other galaxy images, I went back to this target and am much happier with this image.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_891
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