Wikipedia: The Galex ultraviolet image shows strong spiral arms and a central bar, but there is no nucleus. It is the smallest spiral in the local group.
Aspen CG16M on 20 inch PlaneWave on MI-760 mount. Luminance 14 x 30 mins unbinned. RGB: 90 mins each, 2x2 binned. Acquisition and processing all using our own in-house software. Seeing was 2.2 arc sec, ok for high summer at Euchareena.
At first glance, Big Blue here is the only galaxy in the image, but a deep surf through the original image shows two very nice pairs of interacting spirals, and quite a few very small and distant fellows also showing form, and typically a much more orange colour.
wow...well resolved....never heard of this galaxy,believed to have large amounts of dark matter and apparently disturbed by the Antlia Dwarf If I'm understanding correctly.
A worthy restart after the drought, M&T As well as the main subject and the small fuzzies, there's a very attractive little chain of variegated stars and galaxies at mid top.
wow...well resolved....never heard of this galaxy,believed to have large amounts of dark matter and apparently disturbed by the Antlia Dwarf If I'm understanding correctly.
Excellent stuff Mike
ps.nice having the big gun working again
Thanks Louie! Wikipedia talks about it being disturbed by the Antlia Dwarf. Spotted a couple articles about it being dominated by dark matter but sadly they were over my head.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
A new ine for me as well. What is its distance?
A nicely acquired ununusal galaxy.
Great round stars for 30 minite subs.
Greg
Thanks Greg. Wiki gives a distance of 4.2 MLY, which is less than twice the distance to the Andromeda galaxy. So certainly a very close neighbour, but more than twenty times further away than the Magellanic Clouds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
Lovely gem..and great star colour variation. Nice one
Thanks Peter!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
Good to see you back in the saddle after so many months of not having a camera.
There appears to be a few interacting galaxies in this field. One lot just above and one lot below. Plus all the smaller more distant galaxies.
Like others I don't think I have seen a shot of this galaxy before. It looks a little like a cross between the whale galaxy and NGC55 to me.
I really like the colour.
Thanks muchly Paul. The resemblance to NGC 55 is strong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS
A worthy restart after the drought, M&T As well as the main subject and the small fuzzies, there's a very attractive little chain of variegated stars and galaxies at mid top.
Cheers,
Rick.
Thanks Rick. Thanks for mentioning the little chain of stars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Good stuff Mike. Great to see you up and about again.
Cheers Marc. It was pleasing to be up and running in time for the clear still sky over the new moon weekend.
Excellent guys and welcome back lovely colours as usual I recall this galaxy was suggested to me to image (but I never did) becasue it was a candidate for a tidal stream...I wonder if a really long exposure with your 20" beast would show something..? It also reminds me of a bigger brighter version of my NGC 253-dw2
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 17-02-2018 at 10:40 PM.
Excellent guys and welcome back lovely colours as usual I recall this galaxy was suggested to me to image (but I never did) becasue it was a candidate for a tidal stream...I wonder if a really long exposure with your 20" beast would show something..? It also reminds me of a bigger brighter version of my NGC 253-dw2
Fantastic shot MnT!
It is just like a blue NGC 55, there are a lot of galaxies in the background, that 20” certainly sucks up the photons.
Thanks Colin. We'd had one go at this a long time ago, so had some idea of what to expect. Big faint things (rather than small bright things) seem to be the perfect target for our scope, given that we can collect lotsa light but our resolution is limited by seeing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Hi M+T,
Wow!
Lovely!
Great to see you back on deck camera -wise.
Cheers,
Tim
Thanks muchly Tim! We wanted to push on last night, but there was lots of cirrus cloud about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJT
Nicely done MnT.
Been a while. Glad to see you back at it.
Interesting piece on this galaxy from SKA in SA using the KAT-7 as a bit of a path finder for later on.
Thanks so much for that, David. I think I actually understood that! I like the idea that a South African radio telescope is a kind of meerkat that can accurately measure the rotational profile of the neutral hydrogen, and distinguish between modified newtonian dynamics and the need for dark matter. We await the results!
Fantastic shot MnT!
It is just like a blue NGC 55, there are a lot of galaxies in the background, that 20” certainly sucks up the photons.
Thanks Colin. We'd had one go at this a long time ago, so had some idea of what to expect. Big faint things (rather than small bright things) seem to be the perfect target for our scope, given that we can collect lotsa light but our resolution is limited by seeing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Hi M+T,
Wow!
Lovely!
Great to see you back on deck camera -wise.
Cheers,
Tim
Thanks muchly Tim! We wanted to push on last night, but there was lots of cirrus cloud about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJT
Nicely done MnT.
Been a while. Glad to see you back at it.
Interesting piece on this galaxy from SKA in SA using the KAT-7 as a bit of a path finder for later on.
Thanks so much for that, David. I think I actually understood that! I like the idea that a South African radio telescope is a kind of meerkat that can accurately measure the rotational profile of the neutral hydrogen, and distinguish between modified newtonian dynamics and the need for dark matter. We await the results!
Nice work guys! I was eyeing off this one as a possible target soon. Couldn't find that many shots of this one, and very few that were good; this one's definitely up there!
Could well be my monitor, but I think lightening up the background a touch could be an improvement.
Nice work guys! I was eyeing off this one as a possible target soon. Couldn't find that many shots of this one, and very few that were good; this one's definitely up there!
Could well be my monitor, but I think lightening up the background a touch could be an improvement.
Thanks Lee! We like to set the black point at what we call the foothill of the histogram - the point below which there are no pixels in the image - so that true background is completely black, but no meaningful information is lost. We're careful not to clip the histogram. We know the sky isn't really black, but it is the differences above the background are what we want to show.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevec35
Very interesting looking galaxy that I haven't seen before. Nicely imaged as usual guys.
wow...well resolved....never heard of this galaxy,believed to have large amounts of dark matter and apparently disturbed by the Antlia Dwarf If I'm understanding correctly.
lovely colours as usual 
