4/17/05 M88 Spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices

Taken under strong moonlight I struggled with gradients in this image and eventually threw in the towel. Although I wasn't totally successful in removing them, applying flats during the reduction process helped, as did a new gradient removal tool available from renouned astrophotographer Russel Croman. The tool is a Photoshop plug-in and works quite well. In spite of the gradient problems, I like this image. M88 looks a lot like a mini-Sunflower Galaxy (M63).