This is one of the most beautiful southern galaxies and I have always had a fascination with it since Brad Moore posted a luminance image of this several years ago.
It is also quite faint. Very faint really.
This image is the longest image I have taken to date. It is a total of 38:50 hours. It is HaLRGB 40 1295 295 255 235. 10 minute subs each and 7 hours worth were at 15 minute subs.
This image was taken over 3 years. The first 7 hours of the image was taken at my dark site in Bigga NSW with an RCOS 12.5 inch telescope. The next several hours was a Takahashi BRC250 and a FLI Microline 8300 camera with Baader filters. The last section
of about 14 hours is Planewave CDK17 with reducer at F4.45 and a Proline 16803 and taken at my home observatory. There is also TEC180FL and Microline 8300 several hours as well also at my dark site.
The BRC data was quite good. The RCOS data was good. So was the TEC180FL. The Planewave data not bad. Dark skies count for a lot when imaging.
It quite clearly shows the distorted spiral arm that reaches up to the small satellite galaxy and there is another galaxy down low in the image as well. I am not sure if that one is close to the main galaxy. It appears as though it might be.
http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/...37118175/large regular
http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/...18175/original large
Greg.