NGC 891 26th September 2008

This edge on spiral galaxy lies in the constellation of Andromeda. It is visible through small scopes and a thin smudge and was first observed by William Herschel. Dark skies and larger apertures will reveal the dark band of the dust lane.. It is about 30 million light years distant.

Scope: 10" LX200ACF taken at native focal length (2 500mm) guided with SXV AO.

Camera: QSI 532ws using Astronomic type II LRGB filters.

Exposure details: Lum 5x600 secs RGB all 4x150 secs binned x2.

Captured and combined using Maxim. Processing completed in Photoshop

I was unable to use the AO unit with a focal reducer at the time because of problems with the length of the optical path (since addressed), hence F10. I couldn't find a guide star bright enough to do the AO justice and was having to use 0.4 seconds guiding exposures. The set up wasn't communicating with the mount (subsequently discovered to be due to a faulty guide cable) so I was having to manually bump the mount on occasion. Given the problems I was pleased with how the image came out but it is certainly one I would like to come back to.