Spiral Galaxy Tonight

[Gavin1234]

I’ve got one clear night before the clouds roll,back for a while.

I’ve decided to give up on helix for a while and try a spiral galaxy tonight followed by Orion. Was thinking NGC253. Anything bigger and brighter you guys could recommend or is that the best one to start off on?

Also, I’ve always taken 5 min subs which seem to work well on nebula. Should I increase that to 10 min subs for spiral galaxies? I’ve read a formula for working out the maximum exposure time for different cameras but I haven’t been able to figure it out for mine yet.

[RyanJones]

I did NGC253 the other night but I had some mount issues so I didn't get enough data. In total I got just over 1 1/2 hrs intergation on my f/10 SCT and it needs about twice that but only because of the poor SNR the galaxy is actually quite detailed. I'll further ad as I always do that my sky glow is terrible.

Triangulum is at meridian at about 12:30 ish and Andromeda is a little ahead but they are very north so there's a lot of atmosphere to look through but they're much brighter.

[xelasnave]

Gavin M31 should be doable but it is big ... you may need a mosaic☺
Its my next target ...it is clear in parts here tonight but lots of cloud about and I expect seeing wont be flash plus I am tired and I have to fill the genny and set up the scope ...if I do all that they will roll in...
I may do a ruff polar align ready for tomorrow night....
We have had so much rain the ground is real sloshey.

Alex

[Gavin1234]

Thanks guys, after rain and 100% cloud all week, it’s a perfect night here with 100% seeing and no clouds at all.

I had a bunch of problems setting up, SGP wouldn’t run at all to begin with. Then it wouldn’t guide for no apparent reason, then SGP wouldn’t talk to PHD. Anyway after lots of fiddling and rebooting it’s all running smoothly now and about 8 subs in.

I can’t see M31 or M33 from my house unfortunately. I’m going to a dark site (mates farm at Ilford) soon so hopefully I’ll get m31 then.

I settled on ngc253 at 5 min exposures. The previews on SGP look great so far even on the single frame preview I can see lots of detail and dust cloud formation. Fingers crossed that nothing else goes wrong.

I’m going target ngc253 until about 2 am which will give me about 65 subs then it will switch over to Orion, do 20 x 5 sec, 20 x 10 sec, 20 x 30 sec and about 60 x 5 min subs depending on sunrise.

Alex, I know the feeling. When you’re already tired it’s hard to setup knowing conditions aren’t great. I think daylight savings makes it worse too. It means I have to start later each night.