NGC 7013 Spiral Galaxy and Molecular Cloud

Astrophotography: share your photos & discuss techniques
User avatar
menardre
Vice President
Posts: 886
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:09 pm

NGC 7013 Spiral Galaxy and Molecular Cloud

Unread post by menardre »

Last night I was able to image NGC 7013. What drove me to select this object was the molecular cloud very close to the galaxy. The cloud is very faint so I had to take a lot of subs. The crescent Moon was far away so it had no impact on the imaging.

NGC 7013 is a relatively near by galaxy. It is 'in' the constellation Cygnus. The molecular cloud is part of the Cygnus cloud system

I used 11 inch SCT and ZWO ASI2600 OSC for this image. SVX130 and ZWO ASI290 used for autoguiding. I knew it was going to be difficult to pull out the molecular cloud since I could see no hint of it while taking a couple of 4 minute sample exposures. I was having trouble getting good round stars at 4 minute exposures so I stepped back to 2 minute exposures. I started around 9:30PM and shutdown around 4AM. I managed to get 180 good exposures of 2 minutes with 2x2 binning, gain of 100, and 0 deg C temp. 50 flats (0.2seconds) were also taken.

I used Pixinsight for processing and used my library of darks and biases. This was a difficult image to process due to trying to make the molecular cloud more obvious without saturating the galaxy. When I first started Pixinsight I was worried that I would not be able to see any hint of the molecular cloud, but having about 6 hours of integration really did the trick. The gas cloud was fairly obvious after even minimal stretching.

This was my second imaging session with the update iOptron firmware and software.

Roger
NGC 7013 Master_ABE div_PCC_ArcSinH2_NXT_EzSR_HT_MLTsharp_EzMask_Curves.jpg
NGC 7013 Master_ABE div_PCC_ArcSinH2_NXT_EzSR_HT_MLTsharp_EzMask_Curves.jpg (3.55 MiB) Viewed 401 times
Roger M.
Celestron CPC1100 EDGE, Stellarvue 130T refractor dual mounted on iOptron CEM120 on permanent pier mounted in Observatory. Imaging camera ZWO ASI2600 OSC, guide camera Lodestar or ZWO ASI290MM.
User avatar
NGC7000
15+ Years Member
Posts: 2877
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:51 pm

Re: NGC 7013 Spiral Galaxy and Molecular Cloud

Unread post by NGC7000 »

That is a very interesting object, Roger. And a first for me. Wonderful how you get the galaxy in there as well to give that punch.

Beautiful... and original!

Tom
Tom H
"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence." - Louis Pasteur
User avatar
menardre
Vice President
Posts: 886
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:09 pm

Re: NGC 7013 Spiral Galaxy and Molecular Cloud

Unread post by menardre »

Tom

Thanks.. it took some doing to properly frame both the cloud and the galaxy. And it took a lot of integration time to get decent representation of the molecular cloud.

Roger
Roger M.
Celestron CPC1100 EDGE, Stellarvue 130T refractor dual mounted on iOptron CEM120 on permanent pier mounted in Observatory. Imaging camera ZWO ASI2600 OSC, guide camera Lodestar or ZWO ASI290MM.
Post Reply