Clear nights during the New Moon period this year have been few and far between. Last week presented two clear nights with a slithered waxing moon descending in the west so decided to image NGC 6744 a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Pavo ( Peacock ).Its quite a spectacular galaxy dominated by a bright dense star field. At magnitude 9.1 and apparent size of 20.0' x 12.9' ,its well within the capabilities of my 10" f5 Carbon Newt ( focal length 1250mm )
Conditions were below average which reflected in average guiding and resultant slightly bloated star sizes.
15% to 20% waxing Moon
Seeing below average
Bortle Class 3
NexDome Obs
10" f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon Fibre Newt
Skywatcher EQ8 - R Pro Mount
PHD2 Multistar Guiding ( 0.65 to 0.75 arc sec )
Imaging Camera ZWO2600MM , Gain 0, cooled to -10C
Luminance subs 65 x 3 min
Red subs 32 x 3 min
Green subs 31 x 3 min
Blue subs 32 x 3 min
All subs dithered
Total integration 8 hours
Flats LRGB
Darks from Library
Flat Darks LRGB
Data analysed,calibrated, aligned and stacked in ASTAP
Post processed in Startools V1.8 ( via Compose L + Synthetic L from RGB, RGB )
Obviously a mag 9.1 galaxy generally requires significantly more data but quite pleased with what detail I could extract with only 8 hours.
Link to Astrobin for full resolution……,
https://www.astrobin.com/ssx39l/
Attached versions IIS 200Kb
Thanks for Looking
Comments welcome
Clear Skies
Martin