We haven’t had good telescope weather for a while, so I’ve been working on learning more processing techniques.  This is my latest effort: M106, a spiral galaxy containing a supermassive black hole in the center.  It’s got some nearby friends.  How many galaxies can you find?

This is the image where I learned that it’s better to fix the physical alignment of the tracking mount rather than take shorter images to reduce the star trailing – the same amount of time in 30 second images vs 1 minute images takes, well, twice as long to process.  

Camera geek info:

• Canon EOS 60D in manual mode
• Williams Optics Zenith Star 73 III APO telescope
• Williams Optics Flat 73A
• SkyTech 2” LPRO-MAX CCD Filter
• iOptron CEM40
• Friendswood, Texas Bortle 7-8 suburban skies

Frames:

• March 25 1 minute exposure ISO 800
  • 108 1 minute lights
  • 25 0.03 second flats
  • 27 0.03 second flat darks
  • 40 1 minute darks
• April 11 1 minute exposure ISO 800
  • 80 1 minute lights
  • 20 0.1 second flats
  • 20 0.1 second flat darks
  • 40 1 minute darks
• April 21 30 second exposure ISO 1600
  • 471 30 second lights
  • 30 0.03 second flats
  • 30 0.03 second dark flats
  • 42 30 second darks

Processing geek info:

• PixInsight