Revisiting the Draco Triplet: NGC 5981, NGC 5982, & NGC 5985

Date: June 23, 2021

Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog #0076

The Draco Triplet, consisting of NGC 5981, NGC 5982, and NGC 5985.  (click to enlarge)

The Draco Triplet, consisting of NGC 5981, NGC 5982, and NGC 5985. (click image for high resolution via Astrobin.com)

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    About the Target

    The Draco Trio consists of a close grouping of three very different looking galaxies, found in the constellation Draco.

    The Spiral galaxy towards the lower right is NGC 5985. Located 140 Million light-years away, this galaxy measures 246,000 light-years across. For comparison, our Milky Way is 185,000 Light years in diameter.

    Next up the chain is the fuzzy elliptical galaxy NGC 5982. This galaxy is 130 Million Light Years away and was discovered by Sir William Hershel in 1788. The luminosity of this galaxy comes from very old stars, and the core of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole.

    Finally, we have NGC 5981, which is a spiral galaxy seen edge-on. Located 112 Million Light years away, it is slightly closer than the other two galaxies. If you zoom in on the image you can see a prominent line of dust towards one side.

    These galaxies are part of a larger group of galaxies known as the NGC 5982 Cluster.

    Annotated image of the framing - done with Pixinsight ImageSolve and AnnotateImage Scripts.

    Annotated image of the framing - done with Pixinsight ImageSolve and AnnotateImage Scripts.

    The Location in the Sky

    IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map for Draco - Messier 16 indicated with the yellow arrow.

    IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map for Draco - Messier 16 indicated with the yellow arrow.

    My first Attempt at the Draco Triad in 2019.

    About the Project

    Frankly, these are galaxies are pretty small and the grouping does not have a great visual impact when seen at this scale. So why bother shooting them?

    Well - there are a couple of reasons.

    First, these galaxies are pretty far away compared to some - and just to capture some photons that left when Earth was in the Cretaceous Period - when triceratops walked the Earth and Pterosaurs flew in its skies - yeah - that's kind of cool.

    Another reason is that when these were taken, due to the time of year and what can be seen through my tree tunnels - there weren't a lot of other targets available - so why not? In fact, I shot this same target almost one year ago - almost to the day. So this is a kind of test to see if I am improving in my technique.

    Finally - these are small galaxies and pulling out detail with my scope will be a challenge. How much detail can I resolve? How much can more can advanced image processing reveal? I spent a lot of time doing deconvolution processing to restore detail lost through the optical system - and I was able to pull out more detail than I thought possible.

    Anyhow - here is my most recent attempt at this.

    Comment added on 7-29-21

    Compared with the first image made in 2019, this latest image is a significant improvement. So why are we seeing this difference? The same scope was used, but this time the camera is a ZWO ASI160MM-Pro mono camera. This camera does have a higher resolution, and the integration was longer as well, by a factor of about two. Finally, I have a lot more experience with the processing side of things and I worked very hard to pull out every bit of detail that was there. You can see much more detail in the spiral galaxy and in the dust lane in the edge-on galaxy. FInal the color is vastly improved.


    More Information

    Wikipedia Entry: NGC 5982

    Web Society: Draco Triplet

    Capture Details

    Light Frames

    • These were taken over the nights of June 16 & 17

    • 58 x 120 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II L Filter

    • 38 x 120 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II R Filter

    • 38 x 120 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II G Filter

    • 38 x 120 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II B Filter

    • Total of 5.7 hours

    Cal Frames

    • 40 Dark exposures

    • 25 Flat Darks

    • Flat frames taken each night of shooting, and used to calibrate that night’s Light frames

    • 30 L Flats

    • 30 R Flats

    • 30 G Flats

    • 40 B Flats


    Capture Hardware

    • Scope: William Optics 132mm f/7.0 FLT APO

    • Guide Scope: Sharpstar 61EDPHII

    • Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filter set,

    • and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set

    • Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

    • Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

    • Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon

    • Mount: Ioptron CEM60

    • Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera

    Click below to visit post about the Telescope version used for this image

    Software

    • Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller

    • Image Processing: Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, editor regret and much swearing….. Given the problems on this image, more than the usual whining….

    Patrick A. Cosgrove

    A retired technology geek leveraging his background and skills in Imaging Systems and Computers to pursue the challenging realm of Astrophotography. This has been a fascinating journey where Art and Technology confront the beauty and scale of a universe that boggles the mind…. It’s all about capturing ancient light - those whispering photons that have traveled long and far….

    https://cosgrovescosmos.com/
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    Messier 94 - The Croc’s Eye Galaxy in LRGB