Deep Space Stirrings
At 2.5 million light years away the Andromeda Galaxy is our nearest large neighbor. But look a little to the northeast of it and some 100 times farther and you will find galaxies in collision with NGC 317:
Many bright foreground stars of our own galaxy dazzle the eye in this deep exposure. However this little-studied pair of galaxies is worthy of the attention and hold their own with their collisional intrigue. Plumes and loops of stars spray from the interaction. This image is likely one of the deepest color images of this galaxy pair at this resolution.
Optics 32-inch Schulman Telescope (RC Optical Systems)
Camera SBIG STX 16803
Filters AstroDon Gen II
Date Fall 2017
Location Mount Lemmon SkyCenter
Exposures LRGB = 10 : 5 : 5 : 5 hours
Acquisition Astronomy Control Panel (DC3 Dreams), Maxim DL (Cyanogen), FlatMan XL (Alnitak)
Processing Pixinsight
Credit Line & Copyright Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
This image utilizes the powerful combination of deconvolution with HDRMT. Getting the deconvolution right is important- any artifacts will be easy to see with a subsequent application of HDRMT.
Finally the proper balance of chrominance to luminance signal was important here to bring out subtle variations of color in the galaxies. Exponential transformation is a good tool to use to accommplish the stretching necessary on the chrominance.
-adam
