Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4627  ·  NGC 4631  ·  Whale Galaxy
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NGC 4631, Whale Galaxy, 5 Jun 2013, David Dearden
NGC 4631, Whale Galaxy, 5 Jun 2013
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NGC 4631, Whale Galaxy, 5 Jun 2013

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Description

Found the Whale Galaxy pretty easily despite its being in an awkward part of the sky (near the zenith); I just put the Telrad roughly halfway between Cor Caroli and the Coma cluster, then found asterisms in the guide scope. It was easily visible in the guider at 1.5 s and in the imager at 2 s. I'm having trouble with the chiller; the black lead is not soldered in. Currently it is working, 2.25 A, 12 °C. I had a lot of issues with guiding tonight, so evidently it is time for another careful tuneup.

Date: 5 Jun 2013

Subject: NGC 4631, Whale Galaxy

Scope: AT8IN + HPS Coma Corrector

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.2

Camera: DSI IIc (chiller at ~2.25 A, T = 9 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.6, no dither

Exposure: 20x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3 Crop; Wipe:Color & Brightness; Develop 95.97%; Contrast; HDR:Reveal Core; Sharpen; Deconvolute: 2.6 pix; Track; Color:Bottom 2.0, Top Full, Sat 600%; Repair:Redistribute core is avg; Magic:Shrink 2; Repair:Warp; Rotate:180°; Life:Moderate. CS6+Astronomy Tools increase star color; deep space noise reduction; space noise reduction; AstroFrame.

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NGC 4631, Whale Galaxy, 5 Jun 2013, David Dearden