NGC4631 - The Whale Galaxy

The Whale

Found in the constellation Canes Venatici

Discovered by William Herschel in 1787.

NGC 4631 is a huge edge-on spiral galaxy, which is apparently distorted by its small elliptical companion, NGC 4627. Rich field telescopes show it in one field with its large, heavily distorted companion, NGC 4656; this galaxy seems to have interacted massively with NGC 4631: there's a bridge of hydrogen gas connecting both galaxies.

ST-10XME and CFW8a, Astrodon 6nm H-Alpha filter
AP155EDF Triplet Refractor w Robofocus
Luminance: 18  x 5 min
RGB: 8 x 5 min
Self-guided on an AP900GTO mount
Acquired, Flats and Darks subtracted in CCDSoft5
Alignment and Sigma Reject combine in Maxim
Levels in PS CS4
Sharpening via High Pass Filters
Noise Reduction via Reduce Noise in PS CS4

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Flesherton, Ontario
May 20 2009

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