IC 334, an unusual type S? galaxy

[Menno555]

Again something unusual? Yep, unusual and/or seldom captured objects really make my astro heart beat

This is IC 334, a type S? galaxy in Camelopardalis, close to Polaris. It is located about 118 million light-years away, about MAG12.5 and an apparent size of 3 arc minutes.
I started capturing this in November/December 2022 but since then there were only clouds here By now the position of the object is no good for me anymore, so decided to process and continue in 10 months time.

Very little is (yet) known about this system, so there are mainly conjectures. In NED (NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database) IC 334 is classified as an S? system, see https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/byname?obj ... 4&corr_z=1
It is not really known whether this is a spiral or barred spiral galaxy or whether it is some kind of elliptical galaxy. There is a suspicion that this is a merger between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy. The entire shape and the various dust lanes can also be called somewhat bizarre.
Also not really known is whether the faintly glowing band/nebula descending down from the center (almost as wide as the galaxy) is part of the galaxy or if it is IFN. The area is very rich in IFN as this capture of IC 334 shows: https://www.astrobin.com/qcy5e3/

Background extraction in SiriL was also a fairly precise thing: only a very light Auto edit was done and areas removed and added manually to keep as much as possible features.
The uncropped version can be seen here: https://i.ibb.co/D7sxtXn/IC-334.jpg

IC334_sm.jpg (493.02 KiB) Viewed 1158 times

Bortle 6/7
Meade LX200 8" f/10 ACF OTA
Ioptron CEM25EC mount (no guiding)
Baader IR/UV Cut filter
Zwo ASI071MC Pro camera

Captured with SharpCap Pro @ -10 Celsius / White balance R50 B50
42 x 300sec / Gain 20 / Offset 4
20 x darks, 50 x flats and 50 x darkflats

Stacked with Siril and SiriliC

Processed with SiriL and Photoshop
SiriL: background extraction, histogram
Photoshop: StarXterminator Camera Raw Filter (white balance, darks, contrast, lightness, clarity, colour enhancement), noise reduction and a bit of detail enhancement with NoiseXterminator plug-in.

[Vesmaobs261]

Hi Menno,
Great work as usual. The added info. at the bottom of the picture
is really helpful in that we less experienced imagers with similar
telescopes can now plan out how to capture objects that
are of similar magnitude, or even fainter.
Thanks for sharing the details, and all the best.
George

[Menno555]

Thanks George
And yes. When I started with deep-sky 3 years ago, I noticed that some people were doing that and I found it very helpful. Most of the times I ended up with some other settings because of Bortle, sky quality or something like that. But at least I had a starting point.
Since it helped me, I decided to share my settings too

Menno

[timh]

Hi Menno. Nice object and image. So it is an S? meaning unknown type but - is it just me - but does it also seem be shaped rather like a capital letter S?
Tim

[Menno555]

Thanks Tim
There is indeed something of a capital S in it. But also something like a capital P.

Menno