NGC 3981
A remarkably beautiful galaxy in the southern constellation Crater.
It's unusual "wind-blown" appearance is believed to result from interaction with another galaxy, although there is no sign of such a galaxy nearby.
It is conveniently inclined from our perspective thus enabling us to see its complex core structure.
It is 62 million light years from Earth, and approximately 105,000 light years in diameter.
I have always wanted to capture this but it is just too far south for me to do so from Spain. Hence I acquired this data from Telescope Live.
The Telescope Live data was extremely challenging with numerous camera and calibration artifacts that had to be removed.
TARGET
Nomenclature: NGC 3981
Right Ascension: 11:56:07.4
Declination:  -19:53:46
Size: 5.2 x 2.3 arc minutes
EQUIPMENT USED
ASA AZ1000
FLI PL16803
IMAGE CAPTURE
Red: 26x1200" bin 1x1
Green: 21x1200" bin 1x1
Blue: 25x1200" bin 1x1
Luminance 26x1200" bin 1x1
Total Integration: 32 hours 40  minutes
Pixel scale: 0.273 arcsec/pixel
Field radius: 0.206 degrees
Capture location:  El Sauce Observatory, Chile
IMAGE PROCESSING:
CCSStack2 and Photoshop