M74 is not only a difficult object to see through a telescope, it is challenging to image in light-polluted skies. This image was taken with the 14 inch ACF at F/6.3 with the Xtreme. Gain was 4 with a 90 second exposure. I had to do some histogram adjustment to pull the galaxy out of the background skyglow (there are too many car dealerships on the other side of town--Lafayette has a huge light pollution footprint for such a small town), so the image is rather noisy. I also cropped the image to cut out amp glow and some vignetting.
The trials, tribulations and small triumphs of a Charlotte, NC astronomer imaging under Bortle 8/9 skies.
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