| Description | This spiral galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1785. It has a very bright core, illuminated by ionized gas, thought to be created by a supermassive black hole. It's highly symmetrical with lovely, tight spiral arms. Clarity this evening was in and out, with both the brightness and FWHM filters kicking in frequently. On a moonless night, as this was, the brightness filter dropping indicates clouds, and the FWHM filter indicates stars turning blurry. The evening was nearly windless, suggesting seeing was fluctuating from below-average to poor. Overall, it was an uncomfortable evening for EAA observing and, given its relatively high brightness, a mediocre fina image. I had to sharpen the image significantly in Affinity Photo to achieve this final result. |
