A non-cloudy night in Melbourne. Transparency wasn't great, must be some muck in the atmosphere. Still, it was clear, so I spent all night getting some data for this Galaxy. Although reasonably large, it's very faint. It's listed as mag 10.2, of course the spiral arms are much fainter. Although I used a variety of exposures to try to see through the murk, this one needs long exposures and dark skies.
Anyway, here 'tis, LRGB (240, 30, 30, 30 minutes) in various sub exposure lengths (10 min bin1, 15 min bin 1, 10 min bin2 for the luminance, 5 min bin2 for the coulour).
As you can see, the image is noisy, both the colour and the luminance are noisy. It just needs more time and a darker background.
Maybe Greg can have a go from his DSS with the 17" CDK, that might do this one justice.
I'm not sure if I have done this item myself, so maybee it's actually quite good,from my own observations last night the seeing wasn't that good, I lost all my subs due to dodgy tracking, ended up with eggy stars, and some cloud must have come over as I completely lost the guiding somewhere.... Went outside and couldnt see any clouds though, tonights shaping up ok so far the little cloud around should disappear after sunset.
I'm assuming this is the new 10 inch scope, plenty of aperture for just about everything, you don't need 17 inches, although it's nice if you've got one.
Interesting galaxy Stuart. Could be worth a look once its in the right spot for me which is at the zenith to the west.
It looks like the northern hemisphere Fireworks Galaxy.
