The Draco Trio / NGC 5982 Group

[Menno555]

The Draco Trio / NGC 5982 Group

Despite the not completely dark nights now over here, I gathered a bit over 5 hours of data of this nice trio.
Had to use no Gain because otherwise the background would become too noticeable. NGC 5982 itself (the middle one) has a lot of layers, 26 of them. But because of the conditions, maybe 2 are visible in my capture.

This trio is in the constellation of Draco and fits my FOV nicely. They are an apparent trio, in reality there are millions of light years between them.
From left to right:
NGC 5985. A spiral galaxy at around 140 million light years.
NGC 5982. A elliptical galaxy at around 125 million light years.
NGC 5981. A spiral galaxy at around 112 million light years.
NGC 5976 (the small galaxy near the right edge). A lenticulair galaxy at around 140 million light years
And some more less brighter background galaxies.

Menno



Bortle 6/7
Meade LX200 8" f/10 ACF OTA
Ioptron CEM25EC mount (unguided)
Baader IR/UV Cut filter
Zwo ASI071MC Pro camera

Captured with SharpCap Pro @ -10 Celsius / White balance R50 B50
105 x 180 sec / Gain 0 / Offset 4
40 x darks, 50 x flats and 50 x darkflats

Stacked with SiriL and Sirilic

Processed with SiriL and Photoshop
Siril: Background Extraction and Histogram
Photoshop: StarXterminator, levels, Camera Raw Filter (blacks, color saturation, clarity, curves), NoiseXterminator

[timh]

Nice field to pick and capture Menno.
Tim

PS

By coincidence --or maybe just that it is the season for the trio ..there is a post from Jeffbax Veloceraptor -- I think part of a French consortium on Astrobin - imaging the same Draco galaxy trio -- but who I think have access to a monster telescope and dark skies --- https://www.astrobin.com/os11uz/E/?utm_ ... user=21355.

A quality of of imaging inaccessible to mere mortals but the pinpointing and labelling of the quasars in the field ..one at 11.8 billion (I presume million is a typo) light years as well as a few of the other details are interesting.

[Menno555]

Thanks Tim and also thanks for that link.
The shell of NGC 5982 is way bigger than I thought
But indeed: a 1 meter telescope and in total almost 30 hours of integration time ... can't beat that, no

Menno

[kaymann]

You have inspired me to give it a try and I think if even all I could do is equal yours I would be ecstatic. Very nice!

Randall

[Menno555]

Thanks Randall
The group is just cool I think, mainly because a number of large and different kind of galaxies are in one FOV.

Menno