Something dramatic happened. SN2023ixf, a star in the Pinwheel galaxy went supernova. This galaxy is 21 million light years away so this is in fact very old news, but we only just got to hear about it last week. This is a target that I’ve previously imaged but I just had to do it again to see with my own eyes. I’ve only managed to get ~45mins on it so the quality isn’t great If you follow the lower arm of the galaxy, the supernova is clear to see. It’s the brightest object in that vicinity. In fact, every single other star you see in the whole image, including those overlaying the galaxy are in fact in our own galaxy. That’s just how bright this actually is. If this star were in our own galaxy, we’d likely be able to see it in broad daylight.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony sv505c, guided ~45mins of data

It’s the middle of galaxy season and I’d never done these two before. They’re both near each other and are within my field of view, so I thought I’d try them this evening. I manage to get about 1.5hrs of data in total.

Bode’s Galaxy (Messier 81) is one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky. It is located 11.6 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major and has an apparent magnitude of 6.9. It’s neighbour, Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82) shines brightly at infrared wavelengths and is remarkable for its star formation activity. The Cigar galaxy experiences gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbor, M81, causing it to have an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.

I’m still experimenting, so I thought I’d try different exposure length and gain. I’ve learnt how to successfully stack different subs in Deep Sky Stacker so it couldn’t hurt. The questions I wanted to answer were, how long can I expose without star trails? I found even 5min exposures were fine. Perhaps I could go longer but that’s an experiment for another evening. I also wanted to know if I should prioritize low read noise vs full well capacity. You see, my camera is one that has Dual Gain Output technology. This means that at gain of 100, my readout noise drops and my dynamic range increases slightly. However, my full well capacity drops quite a lot. In practice, a bigger full well capacity means I can take longer exposures to catch the dimmer light without blowing out the brighter areas. Of course, I might also be able to take shorter exposures so I don’t blow out the highlights, and still catch the dimmer light courtesy of more sensitivity with the higher gain. This is why I wanted to experiment. So far, it’s looking like the higher gain gives slightly worse results, but I’ll report on that later.

I’m happy with the image I got below given only 1.5 hours of integration time. However, I’m not happy with how monochrome it’s come out. There’s not even a hint of colour in the galaxy. I’ll need to investigate why and try to improve on it in future.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony sv505c, guided ~1.5hrs of data

I decided to revisit the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 and gather some more data. In the process, I learnt how to stack images from different sessions in Deep Sky Stacker. I also improved my Siril processing techniques. I think there’s still more to come from this galaxy so I’ll revisit again at some point and show further updates.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony sv505c, guided ~2hrs of data

I’ve never though of M3 as being a particularly exciting target. I mean, it’s just a bundle of stars. However, I thought it would be a good test of focus, resolution, noise, gain, and FWC, so I gave it 30mins. After I processed it, I realized I’ve been wrong all this time. It’s actually quite an interesting target and I’ll be giving it some more attention at some point in future.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony sv505c, guided ~30mins of data

This was my first attempt after moving from my old Raspberry Pi and Kstars/Ekos/Indi workflow to a small form factor PC and N.I.N.A. It was also my first attempt with my new scope, imaging camera and guide camera, so really it was all new to me. It was also an evening with a full moon so light pollution was really against me. However, I managed to get an hour or so of data and the end result wasn’t bad. I might revisit this at some point.

Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED with Starizona Flattener, SvBony sv505c, guided ~1hr of data