Spring time in the Northen Hemisphere is so called "Galaxy Season" for us astrophotographers, so I decided to step out of my (slight) comfort zone of emission nebula and into the world of galaxies and broadband targets.
For the uninitiated a broadband target is one that exhibits a lot of light frequencies that need to be gathered as opposed to a narrowband target like an emission nebula that emits (say) mainly in H-alpha, H-beta and Oxygen III.
I do not possess a broadband filter (yet) so I had to be careful where in the sky I was pointing and for how long I took the sub-exposures knowing that I would have to up my post-processing game.
Affinity Photo is my weapon of choice when it comes to processing and I was eager to try out the astrophotography features within - namely the image stacking.
So ... here I give you the Needle galaxy (NGC 4565 / Caldwell 38) at some 30-50 million light years distant in the constellation of Coma Berenecies. It is an edge-on spiral galaxy.
Oooo .... and .... I also used the new multi-star guiding feature in PHD2 which worked a treat, reducing my tracking errors no end. Perfect.
60 x 120 secs.
Unity Gain / Bin 1x1
No filter
Processed with Affinity Photo
Clear skies
MJ
Comments
Post a Comment