Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  HD110744  ·  HD110871  ·  NGC 4627  ·  NGC 4631  ·  NGC 4656  ·  NGC 4657  ·  Whale Galaxy
Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies, Stephen Migol
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Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies

Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies, Stephen Migol
Powered byPixInsight

Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies in Canes Venatici also known as NGC 4631. The galaxy looks like the profile of a whale and the companion galaxy also looks like a hockey stick.

Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/nnJbpe

Taken over two nights at Montebello Open Space Preserve on April 22-23, 2014. The temperatures were chilly - 43 F on the first night and 50F on the second. On both days the camera temperature was set to 0C and EXIF temps were reported at 8-11C. Proper calibration was only achieved by using a new library of darks collected since the recent work on the cooler and cold finger, probably because of the changes in the thermal noise.

A collection of 15 subs each at 1200 seconds, giving 5 hours of integration. Would like to have more data on the target to solve some issues with focus.

Tracking and flexure results were pretty good, there's still just a slight amount of flex, just under the 1 pixel mark. The new dew shield is working well to control flare, glare, and keep dew from forming. It does catch the wind, however, and this makes tracking a little bit of a challenge.

Calibrated in Maxim with 14 darks and 64 flats.

Stacked in DSS

Processed in PI. Used some portions of Madratter's color technique (http://astroimages.weebly.com/getting-good-color.html) to move the boosting of saturation to the non-linear stages. Limited noise control again because of the smooth nature of the cooled camera.

Here's the platesolve results:

Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):

-1.76581e-006 +0.000530547 -0.603272

-0.000530418 -1.85188e-006 +0.956069

+0 +0 +1

Projection origin.. [1798.491013 1143.062367]pix -> [RA:+12 43 16.93 Dec:+32 25 50.22]

Resolution ........ 1.910 arcsec/pix

Rotation .......... -89.812 deg

Focal ............. 653.45 mm

Pixel size ........ 6.05 um

Field of view ..... 1d 54' 29.2" x 1d 12' 45.6"

Image center ...... RA: 12 43 16.920 Dec: +32 25 50.20

Image bounds:

top-left ....... RA: 12 40 23.562 Dec: +33 23 04.21

top-right ...... RA: 12 40 25.405 Dec: +31 28 36.74

bottom-left .... RA: 12 46 12.094 Dec: +33 22 48.82

bottom-right ... RA: 12 46 06.641 Dec: +31 28 21.66

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Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies, Stephen Migol