Messier 77 or M77, also known as NGC 1068 or the Squid Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy about 47 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus. Apparent magnitude: 8.9.
RGB: 32×3 frames of 5mn each, or 8 hours of integration. Additional 10x5mn of Ha.
This turned out to be a pretty challenging target. After 8 hours of good moonless conditions, I must confess I was about to get discouraged. Here is what Adam Block got on the same target with 8 hours on a 32″ RC in Chile for comparison (note his RC’s primary has 10 time the surface of Moana’s primary). Another regret is that with a slightly bigger sensor I could have had NGC1055 in the field, increasing the interest of the picture.
And then, Taras_M, another user reprocessed the dataset with the best current techniques and the result truly baffled me. It is very much worth comparing side by side the 2 images linked above: the 32″ RC with 16803 sensor versus the 10″ home made Newtonian with an ASI 1600.
