The Leo Triplet

The Leo triplet is a group of galaxies about 35 million light years away. NGC 3628 is at the top, M66 bottom left and M65 bottom center.
This image, taken on 27th April 2011, is a stack of around 20 30sec exposures using a Canon EOS550d and my Skywatcher 200P, dark and flat frames were also taken. I had to over-process the image quite a bit to bring out some of the detail in the galaxies and this has highlighted uneven illumination in the background which I can't remove, 30 second exposures aren't really long enough for this subject but my mount won't track precisely enough for any longer.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one Tim. Take lots of 30sec frames, 50 or more, if the clouds allow.
Can you send me a copy of the stacked image before you did the GIMP on it please, and I'll try with Photoshop for you.
You need a cooling system for your DSLR, to reduce the need for darks.
More later.

Tim Beale said...

Thanks Brian. I've sent you an e-mail.....