• M74, Phantom Galaxy, or NGC 628 in Pices
    • NGC 628 or M74
    M74 annotated
  • 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
  • containing 100 billion stars 30 Mly from us.
  • The streak is asteroid 10 Hygiea 10.46.
  • Hover over the picture for an annotated version
  • Here is a video of asteroid 10 Hygiea 10.46 on Facebook.
  • 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:  eighty-five 240 second frames
  • Calibration:  20 darks, 20 flats, and 20 dark flats in PixInsight
  • Total Time:  5 hours 40 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,
  • HDR46PhLm, Sat, PMath ~(~Stars*~Starless) → Blend, scale
  • Location:  Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY