M63 galaxy under dark(ish) skies

[timh]

Fortunate to get a clear dark moonless night (~ Bortle 4) on a visit to Kent -- not much wind -- no dew on the mirror etc which allowed for a good capture of luminance data.

Orion VX12 Newtonian F4 (modified), Skywatcher F4 coma corrector, Baader steeltrack focuser, CEM70 mount, Antlia OAG with ASI120MM guiding camera, ASI294MM main camera at 2.15 um pixel size (0.406 arcsec/ pixel) and a ZWO UV/IR cut filter.

Images were captured and focused via a Pegasus Cube 2 using the multistar FWHM tool in the latest version of Sharpcap 4.1485.

694 x 10s captures at gain 220 provided a luminance image integrated In PixInsight and sharpened using Blur Exterminator at 0.8 nonstellar and 0,4 stellar reduction and halo increase by 0.2. The RGB image compiled from a (Pixmath) combination of 91 x66 and 71 x 66s images both at unity gain and at 0.81 arcsec pixel was registered to the luminance image and then both images stretched using the multiscale adaptive stretch process in PixInsight at default values, The high detail luminance was then transferred to the RGB image and then further adjusted with ARCsinh, curves and finally Noise Exterminator at 0.3 and using AI version 3 at default values. Final adjustments were made in Affinity.

The Bortle 4 skies allowed a much better capture of the extent of this nebula than I am used to seeing from B6.