Whale and Hockeystick galaxies

The Object
Whale (NGC 4631) and Hockestick (NGC 4656) Galaxies and others.
Information at Wikipedia. and

More.

The Process

• 25 5 Minute lights captured 5/21/09 and 5/33/09 with Nebulosity 2
• stacked with 20 flats and 100 bias frames in DeepSkyStacker.
• Processed in PixInsight Core 1.5 with DBE, histogram transformations, ACDNR,
  
  HDRWaveletTransformation, Saturation curves.
• Published with PaintShopPro X2
• The monitor used during processing was calibrated using Spyder3Elite. The image was
  
  processed and published using the sRGB color profile for the widest possible compatibility.
  
  FireFox 3 has color management capabilities. Use Google to find out how to enable
  
  these.

The Hardware

• Celestron C11 with HyperStar 3 (F/2)
• QHY8 with IDAS-LPS filter
• EQ6/Atlas EQ/G controlled by EQMOD
• Guided with a DSI-Pro
• Focused with a Bahtinov mask
• Kept dew free with Dew-Buster

Click the 'Full size' icon on top of the image for the original image. Popup blockers must

be disabled for this site.