Galaxies NGC3718 and NGC3729 - Posted May 5, 2007

These two are known as the Whale and the Hockey Stick, though I think the Hockey Stick lives up to it's name better than the Whale! For this shot I took the luminance on the 2nd and the color data on the 3rd. The Moon was blazing so I made sure to also take flat field images. These are used during image reduction to help to smooth out the image background and remove the dust doughnuts that come out when the sky is bright. I went with 3 minute subs, the LUM was unbinned but I binned the color shots 2x2 which helps control noise. It's been a while since I took a wide field shot. I had forgotten how easy the Tak APO is to work with, it's a great little scope.