NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis

NGC 2403 is a spiral galaxy 10 Mly away in Camelopardalis.

The herald of galaxy season, it is bright enough to be seen in small telescopes.

Hover over the picture for an annotated version

Date:  15 and 18 February 2023

FOV:  cropped to 45' × 30'; the apparent size

of NGC 2403 is about 20′ × 10′

Rotation:  179.785°

Telescope:  Stellarvue SVX102T + SFFX-1 flattener (714mm, f/7)

Guiding:  ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,

Stellarvue F050G 50mm guide scope

Computer:  ASIair pro Raspberry Pi

Mount:  iOptron CEM40

Camera:  ZWO ASI071MC Pro Cooled (-10°C) Color CMOS with gain 90

Filter:  Baader Light Pollution Moonglow filter with IR cut

Stacking:  One-hundred-forty-three 240 second frames using Pixinsight

Pixel size:  4.78 μm

Resolution:  0.714 arcsec/pixel

Calibration:  20 flats, 20 dark flats, and 20 darks

Total Time:  9 hours 32 minutes

Processing:  Pixinsight – SPPC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT, DynCrop → Linear

MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Stars, Sat,

StarXT, MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Starless, Sat,

HDRMST6PhLm, PMath ~(~Stars*~Starless) → Blend, scale

Location:  Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY