15th April 2016.

Imaging the Sombrero Galaxy.

This was a "accidental" capture.
It was not my intended target for the night but due to a comedy of errors it ended up as part of the captures from last night.

These are 28X30 second light frames
10 X 30 second dark frames.
ISO 800
Many light frames were discarded when going through the light frames.
Better to be honest with yourself and discard any image that might taint the final product.

Considering the now three quarter moon and some serious LP here I think I have done reasonably well with this one.

The Sombrero Galaxy is a unbarred spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation and is some 28 million light years away.
It is viewed as side on.

I think some more light frames on this one would be a nice project for another night!
I am thrilled that this is my very first galaxy image.

Scope used was the Skywatcher 102 on a ALT/AZ goto mount.
No filters etc. were used.
All images stacked in DSS and post processed in Star Tools.

Two images here, the wide field and a crop of the galaxy itself.