Galaxies
IC10
IC 10, the Local Group's only starburst galaxy, 2.2 million light-years away in Cassiopeia – photographed by Pete Lawrence.
Target details
IC 10 is a small irregular galaxy in Cassiopeia, about 2.2 million light-years away and part of our Local Group. On the sky it sits about as far from the Andromeda Galaxy as Andromeda sits from the Triangulum Galaxy, a hint that it may belong to Andromeda's group of companions. It's also the only known starburst galaxy in the Local Group – a galaxy forming new stars unusually quickly.
This target was one that I was unsure how it would turn out, after two nights imaging and 10+ hours of total exposue I believe this target is too dim for my current equipment. It was challenging to process and I was in two minds about actually uploading it but decided to put it up anyway as it is at least a record of time spent pushing the limits of what I can do.
Capture details
Data captured 17th October & 1st November, 2018.
33x 2 minute exposures with Blue filter (Binned 2x2).
42x 2 minute exposures with Green filter (Binned 2x2).
43x 2 minute exposures with Red filter (Binned 2x2).
159x 3 minute exposures with Luminance filter.
Total Exposure = 11.3 hours.
Equipment details
Skywatcher Quattro 200 CF
NEQ6 Pro
Atik 428EX Mono
Skywatcher ST-80
QHY5L-II
Processing details
This image was processed in Pixinsight & Lightroom.
Calibration and Stacking in Pixinsight using Batch PreProcessing
Dynamic Crop - To remove black edges & integration artifacts. (Each Channel)
Dynamic Background Extraction - To remove gradients. (Each Channel separately)
Linear Fit - To equalise the RGB channel brightness.
Channel Combination - To combine RGB channels.
Photometric Colour Calibration - To calibrate colours (Each Pane separately).
SCNR - To remove green cast (Each Pane separately).
Deconvolution - To bring out some fine detail & tighten stars, 50 iterations. (Luminance only)
Multiscale Linear Transform - To noise reduce the Luminance only.
LRGB Combination - To blend my luminance image with my RGB image.
Histogram Transformation - To stretch the LRGB image.
Curves Transformation - To boost contrast.
Histogram Transformation - To clip blacks slightly.
Export as JPEG and import into Lightroom.
Increase Contrast (+15)
Darken Whites (-25)
Darken Blacks (-15)
Reduce Saturation for a few red stars using local adjustment brush (-50)
Export final JPEG for upload.