This image, part of a series of images taken of Local Group dwarf members, was acquired with a 50 percent moon in the sky. The galaxy is composed primarily of an old yellow population of stars, with a few blue objects superimposed. Three points to be made on this image.

First, the two dust patches above and below the nucleus were thought early last century to be plate defects. Later they found they were large dark nebula.

Second, note how granular the galaxy looks. That is because I am starting to resolve the faint 22nd magnitude stars in this object. This was much more apparent on the original linearly stretched image, but on this nonlinear DDP stretched image (to preserve the core from burning out) it is less obvious.

Finally, on the left edge of the field and about 3/8 of an inch in in the the orangish "star" near the middle of the frame is not a star at all, but G2, a globular cluster in this external galaxy. I found little information on this object, but it is near 16th magnitude.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST7E w/Enhanced Cooling
Exposure:  LRGB = 60:20:20:36 (RGB Binned 2x2)
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FMHW: 1.9arcsec, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  15 C
CCD Temperature:  -20 C
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, PW Pro.