| Description | This is an intermediate spiral galaxy, with a bright central core and moderately low brightness disk. It seems to be developing "S" shaped arms, though the closer arm is much heavier than its opposite. There is also a long diagonal arm that cuts across the spiral structure, which strikes me as the result of some sort of interaction with another galaxy. This observation started reasonably clear, but a high cloud layer strengthened over time. There was only a 3-day moon, which was setting, but contributed to the slightly brown gradient. I did my best to reduce it without restricting the view of the galaxy's disk. Ordinarily, I would capture this with a mono-camera on my EdgeHD at f/7. However, the other targets for this evening all required color, so I settled for the 2600mc in bin 2. This is a noticeably slower rig. Yet another William Herschel discovery, this one from 1785. |
