Enchanted Skies

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M83 - The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (imaged from Fort Davis, TX)

M33 - The Triangulum Galaxy Map of the Region near M33

 

Object Information                                            Imaging Details

M83, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, is a splendid spiral galaxy in the southern sky. At magnitude 8.5, it's easily within reach of modest telescopes, and with a diameter of 14 arc-minutes, it's about half the diameter of the Moon. M83 lies about 15 million light years away in the constellation Hydra.

M83 is easy to spot through a modest telescope. Observing the galaxy's details requires a reasonably large telescope.

I imaged this object at the 2009 Texas Star Party (near Fort Davis, Texas). Sky transparency was excellent, seeing was average to good.

Clicking the above image will bring up a higher resolution image.

Telescope:
Celestron NexStar GPS11
Camera:
Canon 350D (type 1 modified)
Filter(s):
 
Misc. Optics:
Giant Easy Guider (f/5)
Exposures:
33 x 3 minutes @ ISO 800
Guiding:
Through Orion ED80 piggybacked atop C11. Autoguiding was done with GuideDog and a ToUCam.
Processing:
Images were aligned and stacked in Nebulosity. Curves, levels and sharpening adjustments were done with Photoshop CS3. Noise reduction was performed with Noise Ninja.

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Enchanted Skies - Astrophotography by Rich Richins (all images copyright, Rich Richins)