Scope: C8 f/3.2; Location:
Blair Valley, Anza Borrego Desert, CA; 7 May 2005; Camera: ToUcam SC3
Exposure: 16 x 90 sec and 16 x 24 sec Luminance exposures with IR Block Filter;
12 x 60 sec RGB
Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools 2. Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in
IRIS. Channels were co-registered in IRIS. LRGB Channels were
resized to 800x600 prior to LRGB combine. Luminance and Color FITS were combined in Photoshop with Luminance Layering. Color balancing and final touches in
Photoshop (including background noise subtraction on the Luminance master). SGBNR (PixInsight LE) was used to smooth
remaining background noise on the luminance channel and the final result. Very
light Richardson-Lucy deconvolution was applied to the luminance channel prior to LRGB
combine (4 iterations). Final size approximately 800x600.
This image was a guided image. North is up. This object is an edge on Galaxy and
is the third member of the so called "Leo Triplett". This galaxy is
in about a 1 degree field that includes M65 and M66 in the constellation of Leo.
The three galaxies are members of the M66 group. An image of M66 and M65 can be seen
here. Horizontal FOV is about 27'
Image Center is approximately Equatorial 2000: RA: 11h 20m 17s Dec: +13°35'24"