NGC4565

RA: 12hrs 36min 18sec   Dec: 25º 59' 00"   Mag: 9.6   Distance: 20 million light years   Constellation: Coma Berenices

This photograph was taken on the 28th of May 2005 with the camera in Alt-Azimuth mode.  I was amazed for a 9th magnitude object, that I was able to see the fuzzy streak through my telescope at f10 with my 26mm eyepiece.  The night was entirely clear and the subject was almost at zenith. 3 raw images were obtained (3x15 seconds, 17x15, 20x15) with a total exposure time of  7.5 minutes.

The images were combined with MaximDL as always, and saved as an 8 bit tiff file.  Histogram stretching was carried out with Photoshop and midtone enhancement applied to the arms of this galaxy towards the periphery, having selected out the core (feather=7.5) so as not to overexpose it.  The outline of the galaxy was carefully selected (feather =5) and the overall brightness was increased slightly using the Levels function on the RGB/Luminosity channel.

Problems: I feel that a better picture would have been taken at f3.3 - providing a denser, more complete image of the side-on galaxy with an equivalent exposure time.  Of course, the image could only benefit from longer exposure time as well.

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