M94 is classified as having a low ionization nuclear emission region (LINER) nucleus. LINERs in general are characterized by optical spectra that reveal that ionized gas is present but the gas is only weakly ionized (i.e. the atoms are missing relatively few electrons).
M94 has an inner ring with a diameter of 70 arcseconds (″) (given its distance, about 5,400 light-years (1,700 pc)) and an outer ring with a diameter of 600″ (about 45,000 light-years (14,000 pc)). These rings appear to form at resonance points in the disk of the galaxy. The inner ring is the site of strong star formation activity and is sometimes referred to as a starburst ring. This star formation is fueled by gas driven dynamically into the ring by the inner oval-shaped bar-like structure.
Hello Sky Searchers!
I just installed an
After two moon-filled nights of testing the
M94 was an exciting target since I have never imaged it before. Also, it happens to follow a path in my backyard dodging many obstacles, which is really nice.
I managed two evenings on this target for a total of 13:45 of integration which is a good amount especially considering the sky quality. I didn’t feel that one evening wasn’t quite enough integration time for this target.
Guiding performance was very good and consistently in the 0.6 total rms error range.
The
When I started processing the data, I realized that this will be a challenging target to process! I looked at the better images of M94 on Astrobin and found the core area tough to resolve.
The processing was somewhat a ramshackle workflow, trying different things here and there, but most of the time it works!
No color adjustments besides SPCC, saturation, and SCNR and I learned some nice masking techniques while processing and that was a lot of fun. I purposefully over-boosted the details and sharpness of the core so that the image would look better full screen. If you dive in, you will see what I mean.
I need much more integration time or a bigger scope (will not happen) or better skies (also, will not happen) to do better with the core.
Thanks for looking and comments welcome!
