IC 2574, M81, M82, and LBN 683 (IFN) Widefield in OSC (Alan Brunelle)

IC 2574, M81, M82, and LBN 683 (IFN) Widefield in OSC

A widefield image of a rather famous and often photographed small cluster of galaxies. Though here I title first the irregular galaxy IC 2574 because of its unique physical shape and bright blue color that makes it stand out even before the stretch. There are hundreds, if not thousands of small galaxies that cannot show on this short duration image. Only 3 hours in this unexpected weather window. If you want to see the platesolve, you will have to manually select it under View/Annotated, because I chose to use the Mouse Over to highlight the fainter IFN seen throughout the field. Given the short duration, I chose to highlight both IC 2574, LBN 683 and the IFN. That required a considerable suppression of M81 and M82 during key stretches. And also considerable star reduction as well. Given the relatively small size at this image scale, I strove to maintain a clear view of M81 arm structure and clarity of the structure, including the bright galaxy core. I did not try to bring out M82's flamboyant red jets of gas, dust and stars. Holmberg IX is seen close to M81 as is the faint starstream of Arp's Loop that wraps around the upper part of M81 and wants to be camoflaged by the nearby IFN. Holmberg I is faintly visible along with a number of other well catalogued galaxies. But other than that, this is not a particularly deep image.

I hadn't expected to post this, since there are so many closer images of the main subjects here. However, I thought the IFN at this field is the real star. With a stronger stretch and certainly with more integration, more IFN and detail could be achieved, so this is one slice of data that might be of interest to many.

Final
Original
B

B

Title: Starless

Description: For the Starless Mouse Over

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9270914
PixInsight job	MELT9EAXILPCJCYEPX9APJW27O58IT3N
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h46m52s.89
RA (top/left)	11h04m00s.45
RA (top/right)	08h42m40s.20
RA (bottom/right)	08h43m18s.56
RA (bottom/left)	10h27m13s.87

Dec (center)	+70°57′03″.2
Dec (top/left)	+72°01′06″.10
Dec (top/right)	+75°02′13″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+68°10′42″.2
Dec (bottom/left)	+65°58′55″.4

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