M83
Hello friends, this is my version of M83 with mono LRGB data gathered and retained at Insight Observatory. My first crack at this very beautiful showpiece of the southern skies.
The site: 30°31'44"S and 70°51'10"W ...at an altitude of 1,613 m.
- Telescope: Quasar 12.5" f/9 Ritchey-Chretien
- Mount: Losmandy Titan
- Camera: SBIG STL11000
- Location: Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile (DeepSkyChile)
- 54 x 600 seconds in RGB
- 61 x 600 seconds in Lum
- Total integration is > 18 hours, which is a ton of data (for me).
The mount, camera and scope are up to the task, and we know the skies are dark!
My relationship with M83. Essentially I love this DSO but it is so low in the skies (and only at limited times of the year) that my observations have been solely visual. This data is relatively inexpensive and available, so I jumped on it.
It is my first deep dive into processing multi-channel mono data, so that's another rabbit hole. I have to say it wasn't as difficult as I had feared. While processing I listened to "wait" by the French electropop group M83 (my spouse introduced me to that song).
The target:"M 83 is one of the showpieces of the southern sky, but difficult for mid-northern observers to view due to its southern declination. With a visual magnitude of 7.6, M 83 is visible in binoculars from southerly latitudes. It is a large (11' x 10') face-on barred spiral galaxy with an oval core and a bright bar encircled by an interesting spiral arm pattern.""The spiral arm that springs from the northeast end of the bar arcs through only 90 degrees, ending south of the galaxy's center. The arm that springs from the bar's southwest end wraps all the way around the north side of the galaxy to its east, thus giving the galaxy an asymmetrical look. The spiral arms are divided by tiny dark lanes. A dozen foreground stars are superimposed upon the galaxy's disk."
- taken verbatim from Sky Safari Pro
Processing - The data looked clean on first inspection but the final assembly of LRGB revealed some gradients. This required some care in stretching and background analysis and cleanup... nonetheless the S/N ratio was great.
The data is available for subscription here:
https://starbase.insightobservatory.com/inventoryThis is basically the only way for me to get my hands on M83 data, short of traveling to a southern locale.
I hope you like it, and thanks for looking.
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