Afterthought Sculptor Galaxy

[taxman (Matt)]

I was about to pack up last night when a quick scan of Stellarium showed NGC253 was above the trees. Having always admired it visually, I thought I'd take a dozen or so shots (I had been up at this stage for 25 hours and thought I was some sort of hummingbird) before retiring.

The first 75sec shot blew me away and I just had to push through and get at least an hour's worth of calibrated data. With the weather lately, I never know when I am going to get another clear night lining up with a no-family-activity day.

I was too tired to notice a dark patch on the bottom right corner of the subject (which turned out to be a leaf fragment), so I am missing a bit of detail there, but calibration smoothed it out and overall, I am pretty happy with the result.

Best 80% of 60x75 sec calibrated (darks & flats) shots through an Atik 314E and FS60CB on an unguided EM11. Levels and curves in GIMP.

Again, comments, criticism and suggestions, more than welcome...

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Good going Matt and well done for hanging in there on this.

You can always have another crack when it is higher later in the year!

Mike

[RickS (Rick)]

Very impressive Matt. Taken from suburban Brighton?

[taxman (Matt)]

That's it - I am in negotiations with the much better half to tack on an upgrade to the FS60 to an upcoming renovation, so depending on how that goes, I'll see if I can improve it.

Although I tend to have beginner's luck a lot - subsequent pics never seem to come out as good as my first attempts...

Originally Posted by RickS

Very impressive Matt. Taken from suburban Brighton?