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This pair of interacting galaxies is also known as the Antennae or Ring-Tail Galaxy because of the long tails created by gravitational forces between the two galaxies.

Equipment: Meade 14" LX200R/ST-10XME/Astro-Physics CCDT67 telecompressor/Astrodon LRGB filters/Paramount ME
F-ratio: f/6.5
Exposures: LRGB:  L 16 x 5 minutes, binned 2x2: R 16 x 5 minutes: G 16 x 5 minutes: B 16 x 5 minutes: RGB binned 3x3
Date: March 18, 2007 and April 3, 2010
Location: Landers, California, USA
Technical Notes: Individual expsoures were dithered using CCDAutoPilot2 and then sigma combined. Contrast adjustments were made in Photoshop CS with Levels and Curves. The RGB images were combined in Registar 1.0. The luminance image was sharpened with a three High Pass Filter layers using a Radius of 2, 2, and 4 pixels, and selectively applied using a Layer Mask. The RGB image was duplicated and the resulting layer combined using Soft Light to enhance color.