[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

NGC 253 in hydrogen alpha. 150 minutes in 15 min 2x2 binned subs.

Good seeing, but run terminated by rising moon, thick smoke from Wollemi bush fires, and some technical issues with the guide camera.

After a year in the making, this is our first really good crack at an image with a totally rebuilt observatory. Same old 20" PlaneWave CDK, but new FLI PL16803 camera (superb), new filter wheel, ZWO 1600MM guider (brilliant, but some teething problems at our end), five Arduino Due's doing the robotics, and totally new control software, all written in-house.

What we see:

Unlike say NGC 55 or NGC 300, there doesn't seem to be so very much H-alpha here. The raw subs looked totally black. What there is shows a very strong spiral structure.

We'd love to hear from anyone else who's had a crack at NGC 253 in H-alpha.

Best,

Mike and Trish