M74 Spiral Galaxy

Processing Data:	Object Info:
Negatives - October 1998 1998	M74 is a large face-on spiral galaxy located in the constellation Pisces. It shines at magnitude 10.2 and is a suitable challenge as a photographic object in smaller telescopes. The asteroid Pierretta (312) shone at Magnitude 13.0 at the time it was caught crossing my intended photographic object, M74. It was common for the early asteroids to be named and also their initial cataloging reference discovery was common for those that crossed brighter Galaxy objects, since those Galaxies were the targets of Supernova searches, and underwent constant monitoring, my hopes for a new discovery were short lived, as a quick cross check thru the minor planet center showed this asteroid due thru the region.
Meade 5" ED Refractor F/9
216XT Autoguider
Pentax K1000 Body
Kodak PPF 400, Unhypered
2 x 60 Min.Exposures
Image Stacking in Picture Window
Digital Enhanced Curves and AV in Photoshop, BGSmooth 1.5,30 1 Iteration

Processing Info: The above reprocessing was done to add the representative chart as a mouse over. The only significant question remaining at this point is if the emphemerius is off for this object, as pre-programmed into Megastar. The delta path to my pictures is significant.
Object Details Courtesy Burnham's Celestial Handbook, Robert Burnham, Jr. (1978 Dover Publications)
Chart Region by Megastar (version 4.01)