NGC5033 is not in the primary or even secondary list of astrophotography targets. This spiral galaxy lies about 40 million light years away and can be found in the constellation Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs). Galaxy core is very bright and also its brightness varies over time. It is a well studied example of Seyfert active galaxies. Its nucleus is thought to contains a supermassive black hole.
Dust lanes are winding near the NGC5033 galaxy bright core, and they span till the majestic but faint spiral arms. The galaxy dimensions are similar to our own Milky Way – that is over 100,000 light years. NGC5033 images captured with large telescopes are indeed magnificent, and I also decided to give it another shot (because I have already imaged it with 6″ newtonian).
During two warm April nights I captured about 700 minutes of LRGB frames of NGC5033 spiral galaxy. Conditions were good – both seeing and transparency quite decent. But Moon shined during some time over each night. The I stacked subframes and checked the result. I must say I expected a little bit more, especially in the faint arms area, because this galaxy surface brightness is not so low. But apparently suburban sky is not so dark, even when transparency is good. Such elusive areas require really dark skies to reveal.
Image technical data: Date: 10-12 April, 2020 Location: Nieborowice, Poland Telescope: Meade ACF 10" Corrector: AP CCDT67 Camera: QHY163M, gain 100 Mount: SW EQ6 Guiding: Evostar 72 + ASI290MM Exposure: LRGB 350x2 minutes Conditions: seeing good, transparency good, Moon present
Great picture Lukasz.
The galaxy core is amazing!