Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Below is a first try at NGC 5566. It came out OK but neither the seeing nor the transparency as wasn't all that great when I took the shots (lots of high thin clouds). NGC 5566 is found in Virgo and is ~70 million light years away but is big at 150,000 light years across (visual magnitude 10.7) . The small blue galaxy below and to the left is NGC 5569 and is ~56 million light years away (visual magnitude 13.7). The galaxy above is NGC 5560 is ~77 million light years away and has been slightly distorted by its large neighbor (visual magnitude 12.4). The fuzzy looking star near the bottom and slightly right of center is the galaxy PGC 51269 at visual magnitude 15.71. None of the other smaller and fainter galaxies in the image are in my charts.

This image was made by stacking images taken with LRGB filters using a ZWO ASI6200 monochrome camera attached to a 16 inch Meade LX 200 telescope.
Camera settings gain 100, -20 degrees C.
Luminance - 40 subs at 2 min.
Red - 20 subs at 5 min.
Green - 15 subs at 5 min.
Blue - 24 subs at 5 min.

Just over 6 hours of total integration type.

Since heavy clouds are on the way it will a week or so before I can do any more imaging.

All questions comment and suggestions are welcome.

NGC 5566

(Download)

Marc G Loc: East Grinstead, West Sussex, England

Very nice mate

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Marc
Thanks for checking out the image of NGC 5566 and for the comment. The detail was lacking in this image so I cut the image size in half since it showed all that was there to see. The other day when the sky was calmer I got some images of M13 at the same scale and it contains more detail. The image of M13 was compressed to fit in the 20meg limit on the site but I didn't cut the number of pixels down. (see https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-740034-1.html for M13).

JN56 Loc: Southern California

WOW...very nice, well done!!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi JN56
Thanks for viewing NGC 5566 and for the comment.

gekko11 Loc: Las Cruces NM

Excellent !! well done indeed

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi gekko11
Thanks for checking out the image of NGC 5566 and for the comment. The image detail wasn't quite as good as I was hoping for and I reduced the number of pixels by 50% since no more detail was visible at the higher pixel density.
A few days before when the sky was less turbulent I got a somewhat cleaner image of M13 at the same focal length and didn't reduce the number of pixels. see https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-740034-1.html

stepping beyond Loc: usa eastcoast

Ballard , you're really capturing the galaxies out there in Cali, high thin clouds is a plague that bothers us over on the Eastcoast a lot. You're imaging is awesome with the different gear you use {Kudos} on your images.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi stepping beyond
Thanks for checking out the image of NGC 5566 and for the comment. Seems like high clouds can be a pain on both coasts for astrophotography.