NGC 488 is a rather pretty spiral galaxy in Pisces, located about 90M light-years away. ?Its disk displays well-ordered, evenly spaced and tightly wound spiral arms with an unusual amount of subtle detail. The nucleus of NGC 488 has been found to be chemically decoupled, being twice as metal rich as the central bulge of the galaxy. ?This is usually taken to mean that it has consumed some number of smaller satellite galaxies in the past.
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I found post-processing to be a bit challenging on this one.? The galaxy disk has low contrast and the spiral detail that makes the target so unique is quite delicate.? As a result, it takes some care to avoid making the detail look too "blocky".? I followed Bernard Miller's advice and got extra color data because the galaxy colors are also quite subdued.? The image was captured over a 6-night period in September-October 2024 using a 12.5" PlaneWave scope and a QSI-640ws camera at f/8 from SkyPi? Remote Observatories.? Total LRGB integration was 21 hours.
