Messier 66 in Leo: a colour view
Messier 66, a color view (color processing: N. Yamamoto)
Looking at the sky and its depths, one is impressed by the unmatched beauty she/he meets up there. But some objects “shines” with their special charm. Among them, Messier 66. Placed at about 35 millions of light years, its enchanting shape reveals an intermediate spiral galaxy. The Virtual Telescope visited this galaxy many times and one of the last views was memorable.
As you know, the Virtual Telescope system can be easily used remotely, from any place in the world. This way, you can take astronomical images from the comfort of your home.
Recently, Noboru Yamamoto – Japan – subscribed the Virtual Telescope and asked the system to take images of Messier 66 in service mode (that is, without logging in, just sending the imaging request, automatically handled by our server: this option, the one we suggest, makes sure all your telescope time is used for imaging). The weather has been very poor this year, so it took a few weeks to complete the whole image acquisition.
At the end, the task was completed and the result is showed above. This LRGB image, taken with the PlaneWave 17 robotic unit, comes from 28 luminance images, each integrated for 300 seconds at full resolutuion. The color, RGB information included 5 images for each channel, in 2×2 binned mode. Images were taken and calibrated by a routine by Gianluca Masi, while the delicate processing, bringing colors to the galaxy was mastered by Noboru.
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Good Afternoon from London,
I’d like to take a similar colour enhanced photo of messier 74 please. Is this possible? Which telescope, and how many hours would you recommend? If like the same system where you alot the time on my behalf please? As and when weather permits ensuring all the time is used for imagine.