40 MLy

This is a first-time attempt at this target for me. I had a few consecutive clear nights at the end of February / beginning of March and tried to take advantage of them, but amidst all the recent turning-upside-down-of-the-world I had not taken the opportunity to do the processing until last night. There are an incredible number of galaxies in this field of view. Overall, I’m pleasantly surprised at how this image turned out, and it seemed easier to process than many of my recent attempts. NGC 4216 is the largest, most prominent spiral in the upper left part of the image. There’s a very interesting bright area just to the right of the central bulge, and quite prominent dust lanes. Distances to NGC 4216 reported online vary from 40 million light years (which seems the most common) up to 55 million light years, but I suspect this latter value is for the Virgo Cluster as a whole.

Date: 3-4 Mar 2020

Subject: NGC 4216 and vicinity

Scope: AT8IN+High Point Scientific Coma Corrector

Filters: ZWO 31 mm diameter unmounted L, R, G, B

Mount: EQ-6 (EQMOD 2.000j)+PEC

Guiding: Orion Thin Off-axis Guider + ASI120MM-mini +PHD 2.6.7 (Win 10 ASCOM)

Camera: ASI1600MM-Cool, -20 °C, Gain 139 Offset 21

Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro 3.1.0.454

Exposure: 60x180 L, 25x180 R, 20x180 G, 20x180 B

Stacking: Deep Sky Stacker 4.2.3 (64-bit) dark+flat+bias, κ-σ stacking with κ = 1.5.

Processing: StarTools 1.6.392 beta: For L, software binned 2x2, cropped, wiped, developed, HDR optimized “reveal all”, deconvoluted, and untrack denoised (grain equalization). Combined R, G, & B in StarTools, accounting for exposure total times in combination. 2x2 software binned, cropped, developed, HDR optimized “reveal all,” color module with default settings. Untrack denoised (grain elimination). In Photoshop, applied L as luminance layer at 100% opacity. Slight levels adjustment. AstroFrame.