NGC 5945 is a 13th magnitude barred spiral (SB) galaxy in the constellation Boötes.  Measuring 2.9 by 1.8 arcminutes, this galaxy’s spiral arms overlap in such a way that they appear to form inner and outer rings with a well-defined bar.  Although it is relatively small by angular size, it is one of the more interesting galaxies in this part of the sky for amateur imagers.

To the lower left of NGC 5945 lies NGC 5943, a disturbed galaxy of magnitude 13.8 that is listed as SA on SIMBAD.  The brightest portion measures about 1.3 by 1.3 arcminutes, but there are faint, extended star streams around it, suggesting it may have formed by a recent merger.  My (Bortle 4+) image does not go deep enough to capture the streams, but a search around the web will reveal some images deeper than mine.  Anyone with a larger telescope at a good dark site might take note that there is an interesting target here.

At the upper left of the image is NGC 5947, a spiral of mag. 13.7 that measures 1.2 by 1.2 arcminutes.  Beneath it is the somewhat edge-on spiral UGC 9873 (PGC 55247), of type Sb.

Toward the lower right corner of the image is the interacting pair NGC 5934 (mag. 14.8) and NGC 5935 (mag. 13.8), which are separated by about 1 arcminute. 

This image is an LRGB composite, but the L channel is a synthetic luminance based on median combination of 42 L frames and all of the RGB frames.  Due to an active, unforgiving weather pattern that starved me for imaging time between March and May, I was not able to get as much luminance as I would like.  With my little 4” APO refractor, I try to collect about 100 L frames on galaxies if at all possible.  I generally do not like synthetic luminance, but it made a major improvement in noise levels compared to the pure L stack of 42 x 5 minutes in this case.

Looking back at the data collection for this project, I set up my rig on six different nights to get only 8.5 hours of integration, basically due to poor weather.  The fact that the target passes nearly overhead at my location produced high-quality subs and yielded a presentable image with less than 10 hrs. integration.  Still, I'm longing for an imaging location that allows me to finish projects like this one within a more reasonable time frame.