Instrument

12.5" RCOS @ ~ f/9 (2880 mm fl) at 0.64 arcsec/pixel. Shown at  0.92 & 1.29 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ FW8 filter wheel & AstroDon Gen-2 LRGB filters.

Acquisition Data

11/2014 and 1/2017 Chino Valley, AZ. with CCD Commander & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

eXcalibrator RGB ratios are 1.00, 1.24 & 1.25

Software & Processing Notes

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight, Photoshop CS6.

• eXcalibrator v6.2 for (g:r),(b:r) color balancing, using 160 stars from the Pan-STARRS database.

• CCDBand-Aid to repair KAI-11000M vertical bars.

• CCDStack to calibrate all sub exposures.

• PixInsight to register, data  reject, mean combine all the sub-exposures, create the LRGB image, gradient removal, non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation and galaxy core enhancement with HDRMultiscaleTransform.

• PhotoShop for additional background neutralization and background smoothing.

• Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

North is to the top.

NGC 2146 is located in the constellation Camelopardalis, at a distance of about 39 million light years. German astronomer, Friedrich Winnecke, visually discovered the galaxy in 1876 with a 16-cm telescope.

NGC 2146 is a barred spiral with a distinctive dusty spiral arm that loops in front of the galaxy's core as seen from our perspective. The galaxy is undergoing intense bouts of star formation and is often referred to as a starburst galaxy.

At the upper left is the galaxy UGC 3436. Also cataloged as NGC 2146A, it is at a distance of about 65 million light-years.