M74, Phantom Galaxy, or NGC 628 in Pices
M74 in Pices is a face on spiral galaxy sometimes called The Phantom Galaxy.
With just two arms, M74 is an archetypal grand design galaxy.
Hover over the picture for an annotated version
Date: 24 October 2024
FOV: cropped to 45' × 30'; M74 is about 9.4'
Telescope: Orion 127mm Mak-Cass (1382mm, nominally 1540mm, f/12.1)
Guiding: ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,
SVBony SV165 Mini 40mm f/4 guide scope
Computer: ASIair pro Raspberry Pi
Mount: ZWO AM5
Camera: ZWO ASI071MC Pro Cooled (-10°C) Color CMOS with gain 90
Pixel size: 4.78 μm
Resolution: 0.713 arcsec/pixel
Filter: none
Stacking: one hundred and twenty-five 240 second frames
Calibration: 20 darks, 20 flats, and 20 dark flats in PixInsight
Total Time: 8 hours 20 minutes
Processing: PixInsight – SPCC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT,
DynCrop, GHS, HDRMST4_6PhLm, Masked Sat, Scale
Location: Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY