NGC 5033 is a spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici that looks just like a crab to my eyes.  It measures 10.7’ by 5.0’ and shines an apparent visual magnitude of 9.8.  However, the surface brightness of its spiral arms is quite low for a relatively large galaxy, so it requires more integration than you would think. 

The first time I imaged NGC 5033 was in April-May 2013 while living in western Texas.  It kicked my butt.  I made at least five trips to my dark site, one of which turned out to be a disaster.  Although the sky stayed clear the entire time, there was an approaching cold front and I did not bother to check the weather before leaving.  After setting up, I took a single, 5-minute luminance sub, but something went wrong with the guide star in PhD right thereafter.  It was as large as a medium-sized coin on my monitor, and I could not focus the telescope.  Little did I know, things were about to get worse.  The wind went from zero to hurricane force in the next 10 minutes, and it tipped over my C8.  I dove for it and caught the tripod legs with both arms, saving the telescope and camera, and I had to hang on for dear life for the next 20 minutes for sake of my gear.  While I was busy saving my rig, my laptop blew off the table behind me and landed in the sandy soil.  I spent 2.5 hours round-trip in the car for one, 5-minute sub and a sandstorm.  Can you imagine?  I returned to the dark site a few more times to pile up about 10 hours of integration, but when I processed the data, the image was just disappointing.  My subs were not long enough, and the fine details in the core were not visible due to poor seeing.  I framed it poorly, with an obnoxiously bright, orange star in the corner, and I cut one of the satellite galaxies in half.  It was a textbook Astro-Faceplant.

Today’s image constitutes what I call a “revenge project.”  The basic premise is that you imaged a DSO many years ago as a beginner, but it defeated you for whatever reason.  Years later, armed with better gear and skills, you return to the rogue DSO to get some sweet revenge.  This image could have been better if it had more integration time behind it, but it’s good enough to claim revenge.

NGC 5033 has at least three irregular satellite galaxies.   Visible in this image, from right to left, are Holmberg VIII (UGC 8303 -largest), UGC 8314 -medium, and NGP9 F269-0543901 - smallest.   Nearby NGC 5014 may also be a non-interacting satellite galaxy (not shown here).
This image was shot in LRGB from my Bortle 4/5 backyard in New York with the Esprit 100ED at f/5.5 and 550 mm focal length.  I added some luminance from one night at my Bortle 2 dark site.  I drizzled all of the subs 2x to get an image scale of about 0.7” per pixel.  Luminance subs were shot in Mode3, Gain 14, offset 15 (extended fullwell 2CMS).  RGB frames were shot in Mode1, Gain 56, offset 10 (high gain).  I think I can get better results on the luminance channel using Gain 26 (unity for the QHY268M) than Gain 14, so next month's projects will explore this possibility.

With a good pointing model and guiding, the Esprit nearly matches my C11 EdgeHD for detail resolution after the 2x drizzle.  The C11 EdgeHD can produce smaller, tighter stars at the same image scale, possibly due to guiding at 2000 mm focal length, but the seeing has to be good.  Good seeing has been very scarce since January, though no hurricanes or Texas Tornadoes have blown up in my backyard recently.