After a long break due to an extended period of cloud and rain here in the Carolinas, I was finally able to get some imaging time. As it's late Spring, galaxies are the most promising imaging subjects. While galaxies are not the most idea objects to image with a RASA scope, the Mallincam DS10C allows some quite aggressive cropping, which enables me to get a decent image scale.
One of the more interesting, prominent targets is Messier 106. Discovered in 1781, M106 has an active, galactic nucleus powered by a central supermassive black hole and is classed as a Type 2 Seyfert Galaxy.
I've imaged M106 and number of times, and I combined those images with those I took the night before last, for a total of 860 images. These images are a mixture of white light and narrowband data, with integration times ranging from 6 seconds to 45 seconds. The total integration times was just over 3.5 hours.
The heavily cropped image below shows clouds of gas and dust surrounding the central nucleus. The galactic center is a little "blown" to emphasize this subtle data. The reddish areas are rich in HII and are likely regions of active star formation. The outer halo of stars would require a much longer integration time and it appears like grainy noise around the brighter parts of the galaxy.
Here is another image, with a different crop and less processing.
Finally, here is a lightly cropped and annotated image showing surrounding objects of interest. Ity also gives an idea of the actual image scale of the galaxy.
