Centaurus A
12-May-2017
Centaurus A is a peculiar galaxy discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop in Parramatta, Australia. It is ~10-16 million light years away and its lenticular with dust lanes hybrid appearance is the result of a merge of two galaxies.
Image:
- 57x 300s Lum bin1x1
- 16x 150s Red bin2x2
- 16x 150s Green bin2x2
- 16x 150s Blue bin2x2
Total exposure 6 hours 45 minutes.
Hardware:
- Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120
- SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
- QSI 683-ws Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik typ 2c LRGB filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
- Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II
Location:
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
- Imaged over 4 nights. High humidity and 50%-full moon.
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
- Captured with AstroArt 6
- Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
- Live focusing with FocusLock
- CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
- CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack, deconvolution, combine RGB.
- Photoshop CC: Curves, high pass filter, combine L+RGB, color balance, saturation.