The effect reminds me of ducklings struggling to keep up to their Mum.
I was motivated to try imaging this galaxy with the encouragement of my compatriots of my observing group (Kevin G, Ryan and Dave) by trying my C8 Edge without any reducer. Not easy to image at F10 and with the monster focal length, but I spend about an hour at home to gut the 0.7 reducer from the optical train and adjust the back focus correctly, and the MoonLite CHL focuser helped me out with that chore. In this case I simply went with 133 mm of backfocus, which corresponds to the full
This image was taken at our farm, about 50 km south of my city. I set up in the lee of a wall of bales (we had a small breeze of 20 km/h NNW) in the middle of our field.
I used 180 second exposures in this case, with a 2600
As usual this was a fun session in the good company of our little band of astro enthusiasts, thanks to Kevin G, Ryan and David for their help (focusing at 2000 mm!!).
Thanks for looking!
Ian
53 lights @ 180 seconds
20 darks
20 flats
NEQ6 mount
C8 Edge
stacked in