While I wait for my camera to be replaced, it’s back to my trusty Canon DSLR. At just over 12 hours of data captured (just under 11 hours actually used in integration) taken over April 6th and 12th, I was able to put together a view of M106 and some of the surrounding galaxies, capturing the wispier halo that envelopes the brighter and more active core of the galaxy.
This was the first time I’ve used data from multiple nights for a single shot, and I’ll certainly be making some improvements in the future, mainly around how to control for field rotation and some tweaks for larger batch integration in PixInsight.
M106, Wide-field
M106 in the center of the field with 6 more distinct galaxies in view around it, with NGC 4217 (mid-right top, edge-on spiral galaxy) believed to be a companion of M106. Fully-solved plate: https://draco.ineffectual.org/img/M106_20210412-astrometry.jpg
M106, Close-up
NGC 4217
NGC 4217’s dust lanes are faintly visible in front of it’s bright core.
NGC 4232 & NGC 4231
Just barely visible in the shot is the galaxy pair of NGC 4232 & 4231.