Sombrero Galaxy: A comparison between my first ever astronomical photo 10 months ago and now
31-Mar-2016
The Sombrero Galaxy is an unbarred spiral galaxy 28 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy has a diameter of approximately 50,000 light-years, 30% the size of the Milky Way.
My first ever attempt at photographing the Sombrero Galaxy:
Image:
- 39x 240s Luminance bin2x2 + 25 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
- 9x 120s Red bin3x3 + 15 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
- 9x 120s Green bin3x3 + 15 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
- 10x 120s Blue bin3x3 + 15 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
Total integration 3 hours 32 minutes.
Hardware:
- Celestron EdgeHD 1100
- SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
- QSI 683-wsg Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik Typ 2c RGB filters
- Orion StarShoot Autoguider
- Foresight Innovations On Axis Guider
- Starlight Xpress Adaptive Optics
Location:
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
- Average seeing + 50% moon phase.
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
- Captured with AstroArt 6
- Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
- CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
- CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack, combine RGB.
- Photoshop CC: Noise reduction, minimum filter, shadows/highlights, high pass filter, unsharp mask.