M83 The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy spiral galaxy in Hydra

Date: 6/11/2006

Location: Bryce Canyon

Conditions: 97% full moon, seeing 8/10, transparency 8/10, temperature 65-46 F.

Telescope: Televue 85mm refractor, 600mm focal length, prime focus no diagonal.

Mount: Losmandy G11, Gemini goto, polar scope used to align.

Camera: Canon Rebel 300d

Focusing: Manual on star using right angle Canon 2.5 magnifying view finder.

Exposures: (1) 3 min raw, 800 ISO

Processing: IP- convert raw to FITS, dark frame calibrate, align-rotate-scale, combine average,. digital development, convert to 16 bit TIFF, PS CS- curves, levels, color saturation, cropped, unsharp mask, convert to 8 bit JPEG.

Comments: Very low in the sky. The 2nd frame got blocked by a tree and was unusable.