SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Timothy M. Straub
Location of Photo:
Prosser, Washington United States
Date/Time of photo:
April 21, 2023/ 11 PM
Equipment:
Celestron C11 with HyperStar v4 (FL 540 mm), IDAS D3 Light pollution filter, ZWO ASI 2600 mc (-10C, Gain 100), ZWO 462 mc (guide with 30 mm guide scope), ZWO ASIAir Pro, ZWO EAF, iOptron CEM70 on a permanent pier
Description:
I have always been intrigued by this double globular cluster. Based on analysis there are tidal forces between the two clusters indicating that they are a double, not line of sight system. Visually observing M53 with my 14" Dobsonian, M53 is easy to see, but NGC 5053 is not. Light pollution really takes a toll on this low surface brightness companion. This composition is a stack of 82 light frames calibrated with 50 bias, 50 darks, and 50 flats. It was processed in PixInsight (Weighted Batch Preprocessing with 2x drizzle integration, dynamic crop, dynamic background extraction, spectrophotometric color calibration, BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator, and manual histogram stretch and curves). Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw was used for final adjustments and export as a jpg.
