Messier 106, ADBjester

Messier 106

Messier 106, ADBjester

Messier 106

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Messier 106 is a spiral galaxy in Caned Venatici about 23 million light years distant.

This image is an experimental proof in luminance trumps chrominance. The outer spiral arms of M106 are often difficult to acquire, so this image is very deep on luminance -- 54 frames of 600 seconds each, or 7 hours deep.

By comparison, there is only 15 minutes of color present in each color channel. 300 x 3 in each of RGB, binned 2x2. This hopefully goes to show that luminance is far, far more important to a decent image than the color frames.

Do I wish I had a couple more color frames each channel? Certainly. I could have reduced color noise a bit more. Am I happy with the final outcome? Well, you tell me -- zoom into the full sized image and go galaxy hunting, and let me know how many galaxies you can identify in the background.

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Messier 106, ADBjester