Low budget imaging of NGC 3628 and NGC 3627

This post was originally published on my old blog dedicated to amateur astronomy.

This one took me quite a good time to process, ended up making 3 versions of it and sticking with the latest. It’s the first time I programmed a galaxy themed picture so my inexperience spoke during the whole process.

The plan was to put two or more galaxies in the frame with a low budget plan (the remaining usage time I had on iTelescope). I was aiming to the Leo Triplet, a group of 3 galaxies also known as the M66 group. But I was using a deep field telescope (0.43-m f/6.8 reflector + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer) so I ended up taking just two of the three galaxies: NGC 3628 (the Hamburger Galaxy / M65 and NGC 3627 (the M66).

The image composition is the following:

• 4x 30” Luminous frame
• 4x 30” Red frame
• 4x 30” Green frame
• 4x 30” Blue frame

The images were stacked using DeepSky Stacker and stretched using Adobe Photoshop.

Author: Fernando Schuindt
License: CC BY 4.0
Camera: FLI-PL6303E CCD camera
Lens/Telescope: Planewave 17” CDK (431mm), Focal Length 1940mm (0.66 Focal Reducer), f/4.5
Composition: 4x Luminous Frame 30”, 4x Red Frame 30”, 4x Green Frame 30”, 4x Blue Frame 30”
Processing: DeepSky Stacker image stacking, Photoshop Channels composition, Levels adjustments, Image Mode and Camera Raw Filter
Location Name: New Mexico Skies Observatory (iTelescope), Mayhill - New Mexico, US.
Location Aprox. Coordinates: 32°54’14” N 105°31’44” W
Timestamp: 01-07-2020 11:22:57 UTC;
Theme: NGC 3628 (the Hamburger galaxy) and NGC 3627 (the M66)
RA: 11 20 15.10
DEC: +12 59 24.0
Other Gear: https://support.itelescope.net/support/solutions/articles/231906-telescope-21
Full Resolution Images: https://photos.app.goo.gl/EZGQK49ZGu4b2h719
Picture Information: https://gist.github.com/fschuindt/41f8683fad81136dfd859efff534a1c2
Astrometry: http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/3312354#annotated

And this time a courtesy negative gray scale picture. Using the four luminous frames stacked: