Coddington's Nebula (IC 2564)--A Challenging Target in Bortle 9 Skies!

 

Coddington’s Nebula (IC 2574) is a dwarf spiral galaxy. It is believed that 90% of its mass is in the form of dark matter. This image was difficult to capture as there was a light, high haze in the sky and occasional cirrus clouds drifting across the field. The image was captured as 457 single frames, comprising a little less than an hour of continuous imaging. The files were initially processed in Siril with an automatic script. I used Astroflat to reduce the sky gradients, with tweaks in Topaz Denoise and Affinity Photo. The nebula is the concentrated haze in the center of the image. I was surprised at the surrounding nebulosity captured, and I’m not really sure if it is real, or whether the high haze contributed in some way.