Observation Log - February 19, 2001 - Tinton Falls, NJ

Links to the Image Index or Home Page.

[NOTE: The evening started a little late. Temperature at dawn was 14F. Humidity was 45%, and a light frost was evident in the morning. I ran the dew heaters on medium-low all night, and had no problems. The setup on the 12" Meade LX200 was the Crayford focuser/f3.3 reducer/T adapter/MX516 camera, and no IR blocking filter. I did a set of darks twilight flats at dawn. Having a reflection problem with the new T adapter... leaves arcs on the images. - GW]

NGC5005, a galaxy in Canes Venatici, magnitude 9.8, dimensions 6'.3 x 3'.0, surface brightness is 11.7 mag/sq arcmin, and a distance of 47 million light years. The frames were shot between 4:58 and 5:53 a.m. the morning of February 19. This composite was made from 46 exposures for a total integration time of 46 minutes. All images were processed in AstroArt with darks, flats and flat- darks, then aligned and composited. Then I moved the image into MaxIm, and did a Digital Development filter (kernel, low-pass) and an unsharp mask (FFT, low-pass, hard.) The image was finished with a contrast stretch. Here's another version where I used the AstroArt unsharp mask routine instead.

NGC3718, a beautiful galaxy in Ursa Major, magnitude 10.8, dimensions 3'.0 x 3'.0, surface brightness is 13.0 mag/sq arcmin, and a distance of 48 million light years. The frames were shot between 3:29 and 4:44 a.m. the morning of February 19. This composite was made from 62 exposures for a total integration time of 62 minutes. All images were processed in AstroArt with darks, flats and flat- darks, then aligned and composited. Then I moved the image into MaxIm, and did a Digital Development filter (kernel, low-pass.) The image was finished with a contrast stretch.

NGC3521, a galaxy in Leo, magnitude 9.0, dimensions 13'.5 x 7'.0, surface brightness is 11.7 mag/sq arcmin, and a distance of 28 million light years. The frames were shot between 2:13 and 3:19 a.m. the morning of February 19. This composite was made from 55 exposures for a total integration time of 55 minutes. All images were processed in AstroArt with darks, flats and flat- darks, then aligned and composited. Then I moved the image into MaxIm, and did a Digital Development filter (kernel, low-pass) and an unsharp mask (FFT, low-pass, hard.) The image was finished with a contrast stretch. Here's a higher contrast version that shows more detail in the outer arms of the spirals.

NGC3344, a galaxy in Leo Minor, magnitude 9.9, dimensions 7'.5 x 7'.0, surface brightness is 13.3 mag/sq arcmin, and a distance of 22 million light years. The frames were shot between 11:27 and 1:33 a.m. the morning of February 19. This composite was made from the best 67 exposures taken from a group of 105 total images, for a total integration time of 67 minutes. All images were processed in AstroArt with darks, flats and flat- darks, then aligned and composited. Then I moved the image into MaxIm, and did a Digital Development filter (kernel, low-pass) and an unsharp mask (FFT, low-pass, hard.) The image was finished with a contrast stretch. As a comparison, here is a composite using all 105 images, which was processed in the same way. And for a final comparison, here is the DSS image of NGC3344. This final image was taken, I believe, by the 48" Oschin Schmidt Telescope at Palomar. This is a re-imaging of this object. My previous effort was back on Feb 21/22 2000, with the 10" for 30 minutes.

NGC3454 and NGC3455, two galaxies in Leo. NGC3454 (the upper galaxy) is magnitude 13.5, dimensions 2'.4 x 0'.5, surface brightness is 13.6 mag/sq arcmin. NGC3455 is magnitude 12.0, dimensions 2'.8 x 1'.8, surface brightness is 15.0 mag/sq arcmin. The frames were shot between 10:01 and 11:09 p.m. the evening of February 18. This composite was made from 45 exposures for a total exposure time of 45 minutes. All images were processed in AstroArt with darks, flats and flat-darks, then aligned and composited. Then I moved the image into MaxIm, and did a Digital Development filter (kernel, low-pass) and an unsharp mask (FFT, low-pass, hard.) The image was finished with a contrast stretch. BTW, the bright star between the two galaxies is magnitude 11.