NGC 2997 in Antlia

[strongmanmike]

NGC 2997 is a face-on unbarred spiral galaxy about 40 million light-years away in the faint southern constellation of Antlia and it is inclined at an angle of 40° to our line of sight from the Earth.

Conditions were good for the two nights, with some Luminance subs showing a FWHM of 1.6" and even the worst, when taken lowest in the sky, only hit 2.0" so some pleasing details are showing, even without the use of any new fangled software ;) :P

Even after two nights, I was left a bit short on my colour data particularly blue, so, impatient to wait until next New Moon period, in order to finish, thanks goes to Steve Crouch for kindly allowing me to extract some colour from an image of NGC 2997 he took back in 2011.

See NGC 2997 at optional image platforms:

Pbase (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/175294339/original)

AstroBin (https://app.astrobin.com/u/Strongmanmike?i=3clynv#fullscreen)

Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/strongman/54372649951/in/dateposted/)

Mike

[TrevorW]

Excellent as usual, very nice colouring :)

[alpal]

Nice picture Mike,
good detail and depth.
You say
"40° to our line of sight from the Earth."
I checked in Stellarium and NGC 2997 was almost at the zenith
when you took your pictures.
The highest was at 83 degrees altitude at 12.30am.
In any case that was giving you the lowest FWHM at that time.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Trevor, a couple of people have said it looks "pretty" :)



Thanks Allan but I think you misunderstood, I was referring to the degree of tilt the spiral/galaxy disc is showing, as we look at it from 40 Million light years away, not it's elevation in the sky above the horizon..?

Mike

[Nikolas]

Beautiful detail there mate nicely done!

[alpal]

Hi Mike,
you're right - I misunderstood.
I should have read Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2997

[Dave882]

This is a great result Mike. I've had a crack at this one a couple of years back but found it super difficult. I love your core detail/resolution - and your dark sky has allowed you to display those outer arms.... and now I'm zooming in to all those faint fuzzies in the field lol. Mate thats really really nice. Love it

[gregbradley]

I've imaged this several times including fairly recently. But haven't gotten such a good look at it as your image. Your's is the most detailed and sharp
view I have seen. It usually just displays an eye shaped spiral but you've gotten some outer arms there.

The "colour" is very "pretty" and striking.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Wow, that's some nice feedback guys :thanx:

I too was happy with the detail captured and as far as the vibrant colouring goes, I was most influenced by the Chart32 version (https://www.chart32.de/images/phocagallery/galleries/galaxies/ngc2997web.jpg) in this department, not quite the same as the old DM version (https://icc.dur.ac.uk/~tt/Lectures/Galaxies/Images/AAO/Galaxies/captions/aat017.html) with the AAT but it just resinated :).

Oh and it's light years ahead of my last effort (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/132322958/original) on this galaxy, taken from Kurri Kurri (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/107700957/original) back in 2011 using the AP 152EDF Starfire APO :eyepop:

Mike

[Startrek]

Mike,
Another superb galaxy image from your mountain top Obs
Detail in the core region is exceptional
I’ve seen other images of this galaxy on Astrobin and yours is right up there
Top notch !!

Martone

[strongmanmike]

Thanks a lot Martone, I do love hitting galaxies :)

Mike

[atalas]

Sensational :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Aaah! Big Louie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ8aqP2NWk8) :hi: (watch from 12:13 mark :D) thanks mate :thumbsup:

Mike

[Paul Haese]

That's a good image of this target. Nicely done Mike.

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Paul :thumbsup:

Got another in the works...if the cloud cooperates over the next few New Moon days... :prey:

Mike