by Craig and Tammy Temple
This unbarred spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici, was the first galaxy discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1779. It's many flocculent spiral arms resemble a sunflower bloom. This image was taken on April 11, 2009. It is a total of 3 hours integration time and the temperature was about 52° F.
- Celestron C8 SCT with Celestron f/6.3 FR/FF
- Atlas EQ-G w/EQMOD, Guided
- Canon 350D (self-modified) w/Astronomik EOS Clip IR filter + 2" Hutech IDAS LPS filter
- 60 180s @ ISO 1600
- Captured/Calibrated/Registered/Stacked/Initial processing in IP 3.75
- Post processed in Photoshop CS4/Gradient XTerminator/Noise Ninja.