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Old 11-April-2008, 09:45 PM
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RickJ RickJ is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Mantrap Lake, MN
Posts: 1,626
Default M104 Another one

I took this last year. Good seeing this low in the sky is very rare for my location. So I took this even though it was not well positioned. In fact for most of the data collection time the bottom of the objective was shadowed either by the walls of the observatory or a nearby tree I can't trim due to the shoreline ordinance. Also the scope didn't have time to fully cool down. The result of all this is a very odd shape to the faint outer halo about bright stars. Normally that wouldn't show but I dug deep to get the extensive spherical halo about this galaxy that is rarely imaged. As you can see it is really far larger than most photos show.

One data set was used for this image but processed two ways. I processed it first for the galaxy as you normally see it to show the disk and large central bulge. Then I processed it again to show the extensive outer halo. The two versions were then combined to show both in one image.

This is a cropped version of the full image. The full image can be seen at:
http://www.spacebanter.com/attachmen...ntid=937&stc=1

14" LX200R, L=4x10' binned 2x2, RGB= 2x10' also binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick
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File Type: jpg M104L4X10RGB2X10RcCROP.jpg (102.6 KB, 44 views)
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