The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, M83

After seeing another user on Astrobin (jeryyyyy) post an image of this object even though it was low on his horizon, I decided to try it. I love going after a new target, and I've done a lot of the easy ones by now. Conditions were excellent this night, but this was a very difficult target because it never gets more than 20° above my horizon. I set up my scope way at the back of Mapleton Lateral Observatory (my backyard :) to maximize the clearance above my house, but that created a new problem. Previously, I’ve been able to chain my 10 m and 20 m USB repeater cables with no problem, but VMWare/Windows 7 balks at this and refused to see my USB devices at the end of a 30 m cable on a powered USB hub. I had to cut back down to 20 m, where everything worked fine, but that meant I didn’t have enough cable to get my laptop back inside my house so I had to leave it out in the backyard. It was cold, so I went inside; hence, I didn’t monitor guiding etc. as closely as I usually do. Finding the target was again very simple with the PicGoto Simplificado; the goto (from Gamma Hydrae) was almost dead center. I’m really getting spoiled by this little device, and wonder how I made do without it before.

Date: 28 Apr 2014 Subject: M83, Southern Pinwheel Galaxy
Scope: AT8IN + HPS Coma Corrector
Filter: None
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)
Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc no chiller T = 5 °C)
Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither
Exposure: 19 x 600 s
Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.
Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe 85%; Develop 81.45%; Color (Scientific) sat. 250%; HDR:Core reveal; Contrast; Sharpen; Deconvolute 2.1; Life:Moderate; Track read noise compensation 5.15%;. CS6 Astronomy Tools increase star color; Deep space noise reduction; Less crunchy more fuzzy; Healing brush; Smudge tool; Astro Frame.