M102 Spindle Galaxy in Draco

This is M102, also known as the Spindle galaxy, taken with my C11 earlier this week.

 

You can make out a crisp dust lane dividing M102 into two halves. The dust lane is slightly warped compared to the disk of starlight. This warp indicates that the galaxy might have experienced gravitational tidal disturbances in the distant past. These disturbances were likely caused by an interaction with a nearby galaxy, as M102 is the largest member of a small cluster of galaxies.

 

Some faint, wispy trails of dust can be seen meandering away from the disk out into the bulge and inner halo of the galaxy. Background galaxies that are millions to billions of light-years farther away than M102 are also seen through its halo.

 

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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: Optolong L-Pro filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

 

Stacked from:

Lights 67 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 120 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flat 30 at 1.1 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flat 30 at 1.1 seconds, gain 101 temp -10C

 

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Captions added in Photoshop CS4

 

 

 

Done