Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068
23-Jul-2021
NGC 5068 is a seldom photographed face-on galaxy sporting a bright central bar with diffuse spiral arms containing areas of pink hydrogen nebulosity and star-forming regions.
Image:
- 98x 300s Luminance
- 45x 300s Red
- 55x 300s Green
- 44x 300s Blue
Total integration 20 hours, 10 minutes. Focal length: 1960mm
Hardware:
- Celestron 11" EdgeHD
- Celestron 0.7x EdgeHD focal reducer
- Skywatcher EQ8-Rh Pro mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astrodon LRGB Gen2 E-Series Tru-Balance filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Innovations Foresight ONAG
- Starlight Instruments Feather Touch Focuser
Location:
- Exposed over 5 nights between 11th April to 19th April 2021
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
- Captured with TheSkyX Professional
- Guiding with PHD2
- PixInsight: Calibrate, align, integrate, dynamic background extraction, local histogram equalization, LRGB combination, noise reduction, photometric color calibration, histogram, curves, crop.