|
Software & Processing Notes |
CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin,
Noel Carboni's actions
and Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator.
PixFix32 (pre-beta) to
repair hot/cold pixels and column defects.
eXcalibrator for (b-v) color calibration, using 5 stars from the
NOMAD1 database.
CCDStack to calibrate, register,
normalize, data reject, combine sub exposures & color combine for
the LRGB.
PhotoShop CS3 for
non-linear stretching
and LLRGB combine
240 minutes of Ha
filtered data was overlayed onto the Red channel to highlight the
HII star forming regions. |
|
Comment |
North is to the
top.
M74 (also known as NGC
628) is a perfect example of a face on grand design galaxy.
Discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780, the galaxy is located in the
constellation Pisces, at a distance of about 30 million light-years.
With its low surface brightness, M74 is the most difficult Messier
object to observe visually. However, long photographic exposures
reveal beautiful spiral arms with blue star clusters and red HII
star forming regions.
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