NGC 2403 - Spiral Galaxy in Camelopardalis.

I must confess to being responsible for the cloudy weather we've been having for the last while. You see I got some new gear. Got a Celestron CGE mount and also a new 10" F/4 newt. Coupled with a Baader coma corrector it makes a fabulous imaging platform. I haven't managed to get all my piggyback gear mounted yet so no autoguiding just yet.

Nevertheless I threw the ATIK up on it last night and started rolling off a few exposures. Given that I wasn't autoguiding and haven't trained PEC yet it's not surprising that the stars are a tiny bit eggy. Saying that, the image below is a sequence of 40 x 2.5 minutes exposures so I'm totally thrilled with how this mount is performing. Anyway more about the mount when I get to do some quantitive tests.

Here's the image, details as usual underneath.

webtreatz.com/component/option,com_zoom/...geNo,5/key,43/hit,1/

Dave,

Firstly, many congrats on your new astro gear!!

Secondly, great image! As you say, there is slight trailing but you seem to be up and running very quick. Well done! Super image!

Regards,

That image is just stunning! The detail in the structure of the galaxy is just amazing!

Bart.

Dave,

Thanks for the image and heads-up. I would like to add it to my list of targets for imaging BUT I think the NGC identification may not be correct. Can you please recheck? Also, any indication how big the galaxy is (arcmins x arcmins)?

The trailing is minimal and does not take anything away from the nice image! If you have the time, check into a non-linear transformation which will bring up the faint detail without burning the image. Examples include ASINH, gammalog, DDP etc.

Anthony's correct - it's NGC2403 not 2043! The image in Burnham's (taken with the 61" Flagstaff Navel Observatory astrometric reflector) is a mirror image... only your's is nicer!

Of course quite right NGC 2403 it is. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the kind comments, cant wait to get PEC enabled and guiding up and running!