The Monster in the Distance

[Paul Haese]

This image is of NGC1316, the monster radio galaxy located in Fornax. Also known as Fornax A because of it radio source. It is classified as a giant elliptical galaxy which has clearly consumed other smaller galaxies over the eons. There are numerous shells of dust, gas and stars which trace the mergers. NGC1317 which is the smaller face on galaxy is believed to have had a recent interaction with NGC1316. It is a face on barred spiral with a very active core region. Off the right of the image is the spiral galaxy of NGC1310 which appears to show the classic design and a rather large halo surrounding it. Finally, down the bottom of the image is PGC12706 a odd looking galaxy which is probably classified as irregular. It also has a very large halo surrounding it.


Unfortunately, I have almost run out of time on this object for this year. I had planned on collecting a vast sum of data but cloud, smoke and timing were against me this year. I have imaged this galaxy before several times (http://paulhaese.net/NGC1316.html) with two different (http://paulhaese.net/NGC1316DeepField.html) telescopes, but I think I prefer this field of view.


The image contains 24 hours of integration with 3 hours in each colour collected and 15 hours in luminance.



I have provided a smaller annotated image for people to identify the background galaxy, but of course there are many other smaller unidentified galaxies in the far background.


Click here (http://paulhaese.net/NGC1316%20AG12.html) for the larger resolution image.


I hope you enjoy the views.

[Andy01]

Very interesting target well captured, nice work! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Very nice result Paul, it is such an intriguing galaxy, so many swirls and the accompanying galaxies make for a lot of interest in the scene :thumbsup:

One of the coolest bit of this galaxy though, is a faint two lobed outer loop extension. It is hard to pick up in your image as displayed but extends down to the lower right and out of the frame in a 5pm direction. It is discernible in your image under a strong stretch. If you had positioned the galaxy a bit further to the upper left and rotated the camera slightly clockwise you would have fitted it all in nicely I recon..?

Anyway, that's just an aside, still a great shot.

Mike

[codemonkey]

Nice one Paul; classy as usual. I think this would be an interesting target to go ultra deep on. Are you planning to add data over future seasons?

[miki63au]

Woah, great shot and processing Paul! Sharp, and 24h?? :eyepop:


Mick

[Atmos]

The 24 hours of data is really showing there Paul, such a smooth and clean result with some very good detail within the galaxies themselves :thumbsup:

The virtually blue large background galaxy on the right side (NGC 1310) intrigues me.

[marco]

Excellent shot Paul, very detailed. Are you working at 0.98"/pixel, right?
May I ask the average FWHM you had on the original fit?
Clear skies
Marco

[gregbradley]

That is a sensational image Paul. Knocked my socks off. Look at how huge the star cloud is around the distorted galaxy.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks everyone for the comments.





Thanks Mike. I did consider another framing to include that outer stream. I noted it a few years back when I used the FSQ to image the region and it started to come out with extended integration. That outer stream is really faint, but a worthy target. Perhaps one day in the future I'll try to capture all of it. If I get the new AG12 setup with the STXL I think I could capture it well as well as the rest of the field.





Thanks Lee, I think I'll have to try for to another lot of imaging next year, just to see what I can get out of it. There are a lot of background galaxies in the field and those combined with the tidal streams might well produce interesting results.





Thanks Colin, a bit of smoothing had to be employed but it was only slight to get a smooth background. NGC1310 does not appear to have many old stars within it. I looked at several images of this galaxy and not many showed much colour other than blue. The only one that showed much colour was Rolf's image a few years back.





Thank Marco, the image scale is 0.94"/pixel. This image is a slight crop to remove some odd shaped stars in the far corners. The FWHM of individual subs used were according to CCDStack2 2-3.1. Seeing has been a bit average at Clayton for the last few years but still quite serviceable. The stack of luminance FWHM was 4 prior to some decon. Why do you ask?

[Placidus]

My socks are also missing.

A superb, inspiring image.

Best,
Mike

[alpal]

Hi Paul,
that's a top picture - well done.
More info here including a radio picture-
"a degree wide composite of visual and radio images of the region."
http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc13.htm#1316


cheers
Allan

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Mike. High praise indeed.






Thanks Allan. Interesting read there. I spent some time reading through last night. The history was quite intriguing about 1318 - 1317.

[topheart]

Sensational!

Regards,
Tim

[multiweb]

That's a brilliant shot of that galaxy. Really nicely processed too. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[marco]

Thanks Paul, I am asking because I am struggling with the seeing in Coona and wanted to compare. The image you produced looks pretty sharp, with nice tiny stars all over the field and I was imaging you had better seeing than mine, which is apparently similar to yours (2" to 3.1") or a bit on the higher side, mostly around 3" on subs.. I am trying to understand what I could tune on my setup to improve the FWHM but if the seeing is mediocre there is not too much I can do.. That's all :)
Regards
Marco

[Paul Haese]

I am going short subs (5minutes in LRGB). Ditching subs that have higher values and look bloated. If I remember yours is an RC (or is it an IDK) and they do have bloated looking bright stars but tiny dim stars. What image scale are you using? That will dictate terms a bit too.