MRK 501 (Quasar)

Target details

Markarian 501 is a blazar about 456 million light-years away: a galaxy whose active core fires a jet almost straight at Earth. Its light reaches the very highest gamma-ray energies, and those gamma rays are extremely changeable, with violent outbursts. In visible light it varies between magnitude 13.6 and 14.5. Blazars are thought to be powered by matter falling into a black hole, possibly a pair of them; the speeds of the stars in Mrk 501 suggest a central mass of up to a few billion Suns, and a 23-day cycle in its brightness hints that something may be orbiting it.

HD 153032 (HIP 82801)
This circumpolar star is located around 1300 Ly from Earth. It is a main sequence star with an Absolute Magnitude of 8.35, it's colour index is 1.48, this would give it a red colour.
2MASX J16540036 +3950409
Unfortunately I cannot find much information on this galaxy, I expect it's distance is greater than 200 Mly.
2MASX J16535637 +3948459
Unfortunately I cannot find much information on this galaxy, I expect it's distance is greater than 200 Mly.

Capture details

Data captured 9th September, 2019.
39x 3 minute exposures with Luminance filter.

Total Exposure = 2.0 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.
Dynamic Background Extraction - To remove gradients.
Deconvolution - To tighten stars.
Histogram Transformation - To stretch the image.

Export as JPEG and import into Lightroom.

Reduce Shadows (-100)
Increase Luminance (+50)

Export final JPEG for upload.