Why are people ignoring NGC 4030?

[Geoff45]

I was able to find only one amateur image of this galaxy, which is quite strange considering its size (4 arcminutes) and brightness (mag 10.6). I would have expected that its location in Virgo would have made it a target for both northern and southern imagers. So one image on IIS, none on astrobin, no reference in any of the popular "what can I image" catalogues.


The weird thing is that I imaged it in 2017 and 2018 then forgot about it and never got around to processing it. There must be some sort of conspiracy to keep it hidden.



The image is here https://www.astrobin.com/ajvnzj/

Usual equipment: Plane Wave 12.5", FLI 16803 Proline, AP900. Processed in PixInsight.



NGC 4030 is a grand design spiral galaxy in Virgo, lying about 64 million light years.
In 2007, a supernova explosion was discovered in the galaxy from images taken on February 19 from the 1 m Swope telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile The progenitor was a red giant star with 8.5–16.5 times the mass of the Sun.
See an image of the supernova here https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=18661&highlight=ngc+4030

This was the only amateur image of NGC 4030 that I could find.

[Stonius]

Shh! We don't talk about what happened in NGC4030.


Nice image, BTW :-)

[AdamJL]

Focal length! It's a small target for many of us who don't have ultra long f/l scopes.

Lovely picture. What's causing the brightness above the galaxy in this image? Is it something that can be teased out with more integration time or some minor reflections?

[Bassnut]

Very well done Geoff!. Yes, I have found a few examples via google, but all by pro observatories, and some of them are crap compared to yours!. I love these rare efforts, a pleasure to view.

[Dave882]

That’s a great shot mate! I think that most targets are selected based on “suggestions” from popular apps or websites, or because someone has skilfully brought it to our attention… :thanx: but I do like to get off the beaten track a bit and see something new every so often.
Might have a crack with the c14 but would be overjoyed to get a result even close to this one. :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Good one Geoff,


Hubble took a pic of it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4030#/media/File:Ngc4030-hst-R814GB450.jpg


cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

That's a little beauty Geoff, fine spiral arms and a lovely field :thumbsup:

There are so many galaxies around this angular size, if people dare to stray from the larger more well known ones. With the small pixels CMOS based cameras in use now, lots of people these days are imaging with enough image scale to do them plenty of justice too, just gotta be a bit daring ;)

Mike

[Paul Haese]

Lovely image, and I will be putting it on my list. Thanks for providing a very good benchmark.

[Geoff45]

Thanks all. I don’t remember how I found this one. Possibly just browsing through a collection of dss photos that I have.