NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick (Michael Feigenbaum)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: NGC 4627 · NGC 4631 · NGC 4656 · NGC 4657 · Whale Galaxy

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NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick

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NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick

Here we have a try at the The Whale and The Hockey Stick, NGC 4631 and NGC 4656. These are the two brightest of an interacting group within the Virgo Cluster and is also a member of the Arp Catalog as Arp281, together with the smaller satellite galaxy NGC4627. They are thought to lie approximately 30 million light years away.

These are a staple of galaxy season and I wanted to give 'em a try with the small refractor, still not back to business with the SCT quite yet. At 90mm and f/7, I believed I had to really increase the integration to make a passable image. So we have about 15 hours of L data, and I think more might have been better. I did some Hα work too in the hope of being able to add that without overwhelming the image and I think I had some success in that regard. I think that if you look hard and use a little imagination, you can see some material being stretched along the space between the two bigger galaxies.

Hopefully I have the SCT going soon but in the meantime, I have commissioned a 200mm f/4 Newt on my travel mount. I wanted to see if the RST-135 could adequately handle the larger telescope and it passed the test. The amount of light captured and the better details I have been seeing in stuff I am working on now seem to show that, at least in my astrophotography world, there is little reason to do much other than very large targets like extended nebulae, large open clusters, etc. with the small refractors. But the time spent dong this work with a small refractor was well spent I think and will pay off when I get the opportunity to go to a real dark site.

Hope you like this one, clear skies and good health to everyone!

Cloudy Nights
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5704622
PixInsight job	6ZQ5GY0VQOL4Z87TY4BUQ1GXG0FMW7E9
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	12h42m41s.57
RA (top/left)	12h45m05s.72
RA (top/right)	12h39m36s.22
RA (bottom/right)	12h40m18s.51
RA (bottom/left)	12h45m45s.73

Dec (center)	+32°21′03″.8
Dec (top/left)	+32°50′46″.5
Dec (top/right)	+32°37′45″.4
Dec (bottom/right)	+31°51′12″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	+32°04′04″.6

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NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick

NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick

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NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick

NGC4631 and NGC4656 - The Whale and The Hockey Stick

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