Whirlpool Galaxy

First combined exposures using Bry's Observatory!

Equipment:

Scope: Celestron Edge HD 9.25 (with 0.7x reducer)

Mount: Celestron CGX-L mount

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 1600mm-Pro camera (Cooled to -20, unity gain 139/50).

Off-axis Guider: Celestron OAG with a Touptek Guide Camera

Filter/Filterwheel: Astromania Manual Filter wheel, Astromania LRGB Filters

 

14 x 300s Red

15 x 300s Green

11 x 300s Blue

 

200 total minutes of integration shot from a Bortle 7/6 zone near Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

Software:

PHD2 for guiding

Sharpcap for Polar Alignment

Sequence Generator Pro for exposure acquisition

Celestron PWI for mount interface

PixInsight for:

Exposure registration and integration

Dynamic cropping

Mono channel registration

Dynamic cropping

Background extraction

LinearFit to Blue Channel

Channel combination

Dynamic background extraction

ScreenTransferFunction

Curves and histogram manipulation to generate contrast

SCNR to remove background green and blue noise

MultiscaleLinearTransfer to increase detail/sharpness

Export as Tiff to upload

 

Done