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Old 08-11-2018, 08:37 AM
furgle (Adam)
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Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 144
The Cartwheel Galaxy

I've always wanted to try to capture this galaxy. I was surprised to get any detail out of it.

Higher resolution here



Lying about 500 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, the cartwheel shape of this galaxy is the result of a violent galactic collision. A smaller galaxy has passed right through a large disk galaxy and produced shock waves that swept up gas and dust — much like the ripples produced when a stone is dropped into a lake — and sparked regions of intense star formation (appearing blue). The outermost ring of the galaxy, which is 1.5 times the size of our Milky Way, marks the shock wave’s leading edge. This object is one of the most dramatic examples of the small class of ring galaxies. (Source: NASA)


The galaxy that collided with the Cartwheel Galaxy is the small white galaxy seen far below and slightly left. It is currently 250,000 light years from the Cartwheel Galaxy (Source: APOD)

Image: Total integration 18 hours.

Hardware:
  • Celestron 11" EdgeHD
  • Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
  • QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
  • Astronomik UHC, deep sky RGB filters
  • Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
  • Starlight Xpress Active Optics
  • Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
  • Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II
Location:
  • Imaged on 4 nights between September 18 and October 3, 2018.
  • Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Attached Thumbnails
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Click for full-size image (carthwheel_IIS.jpg)
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