Focal Pointe Observatory
Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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NGC 2685

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Click the image for a wide field view. (3312 x 2208 - 1.66 MB)

Instrument

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

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

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

Acquisition Data

1/19/2018 to 4/8/2018 Chino Valley, AZ.  with CCD Commander & CCDSoft.  AOL guided

Exposure

Lum

900 min (30 x 30 min. each) Bin 1x1

RGB

675 min (15 x 15 min. each) Bin 2x2

eXcalibrator RGB ratios are 1.00, 1.11 & 1.27

Software & Processing Notes

 

  • CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight, Photoshop CS6.

  • eXcalibrator v6.1 for (g:r),(b:r) color balancing, using 75 stars from the Pan-STARRS database.

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

  • CCDStack to calibrate the sub exposures.

  • PixInsight to register, data  reject, mean combine the sub exposures and create the LRGB image. Also for gradient removal, non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation, color saturation and increased galaxy core detail with HDRMultiscaleTransform.

  • PhotoShop layers for selectivly adding the enhanced galaxy core data, selective sharpening, and background noise reduction. 

  • Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

 

Shown rotated 90° counter clock-wise.

NGC 2685 (the Helix Galaxy) is a lenticular and polar ring Seyfert galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major, at a distance of about 45 million light-years. Polar ringed galaxies are quite rare and attract great interest. The rings are probably captured material from another galaxy.

Also visible is an external ring surrounding the entire galaxy. This may be true ring or a complete shell.