* Back in the saddle! A series of mono images from 2022 *This galaxy has 3 layers: a super-bright core (overexposed with 300 seconds), a medium-brightness diffuse galactic disk, and a very dim ring-like outer halo. My version presented here has a highly compressed dynamic range to show off the dark dust lanes and starburst ring. The outer halo is there, but it's barely visible above the background noise. I suspect darker skies are a must for this feature.
I downloaded some data from the famous
Liverpool Telescope, a modern research instrument with a 2 meter mirror located on a mountain top of the island La Palma. Incredible to see how my amateur gear and skies approaches the resolution of a professional telescope (on a bad night in La Palma). Of course, the huge mirror of the pro telescope and better skies allow for much faster image acquisition.
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