22.5 MLy

My last attempt on this galaxy was 4 years ago and last night started out beautifully clear, so with the Moon departing I decided to give this target a try. Things started out well, but to my surprise when I got up this beautifully clear morning to look at the results I found that clouds entered the picture a bit before this acquisition was supposed to finish (and I therefore didn’t get anything on the 2 subsequent targets I had planned on). Hence, I only got 10 G subs, but couldn’t resist going ahead and processing what I have. This one was fairly straightforward except that I didn’t have enough G subs for the κ-σ stacking I usually use; I went with median instead for that. I also fooled around a bit with the color trying to match the color histograms. I love the tight inner ring and the faint outer arm (ring) of this galaxy and was also delighted to see, on closer inspection, that there are more small “faint fuzzies” in the background than I had expected. For example, there’s a pretty s-shaped barred spiral at about 5 o'clock 1/3 of the way from the bottom to the center.

Date: 13-14 Apr 2020

Subject: NGC 3344

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 3.1.0.457

Exposure: 20x180 R, 60x180 L, 20x180 B, 10x180 G

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

Processing: StarTools 1.6.392 beta: Software binned L 2x2, cropped, wiped, developed, HDR (reveal all), deconvoluted, untrack denoised (grain equalization). Combined R, G, & B in StarTools, accounting for the decreased integration of G. Software binned 2x2, cropped, developed, HDR (optimize soft), color with a lot of saturation boost, untrack denoised (grain removal). Applied L to color in Photoshop. A little bit of levels+curves adjustment, increase star color, two rounds of layer-masked deep space noise reduction followed by layer-masked “less crunchy more fuzzy.” AstroFrame.