Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  M 63  ·  NGC 5055  ·  Sunflower Galaxy
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Sunflower Galaxy (M63), Nick Evans
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Sunflower Galaxy (M63)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Sunflower Galaxy (M63), Nick Evans
Powered byPixInsight

Sunflower Galaxy (M63)

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Description

Not great seeing (0.8-1.1 RMS), but came out reasonably with processing. I'm always debating in my head on how long to make my sub lengths in order to modulate how much of the "faint bits" to reveal. In this case, at 2 minutes seems reasonable for my F6.5 setup in Bortle 7 skies on galaxies. With this target there are nice long whirlpool like dust fronds on the edge of the galaxy that you can start to see in this image. Its a trade off because if I went longer I could reveal more of those fronds/arms, but it may cost me in fuzzing out detail of the core as the risk of guiding oscillations could increase with more integration time. Therefore I think its something to modulate based on the brightness of the features of the target you're picking. (something to consider for your next image session)

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Sunflower Galaxy (M63), Nick Evans