← Back to the gallery
FROM THE OBSERVATORY · 23-Jul-2021

Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068

Open original image ↗
Spiral Galaxy NGC 5068
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.
BEHIND THE IMAGE

Notes from the session

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.