[Shiraz (Ray)]

NGC1316 is an elliptical with clearly visible shells and knots in the structure, resulting from past galaxy interactions. It has an extensive halo of previous galaxy-encounter debris that encloses the smaller NGC1317 - which is in the process of being drawn in. NGC1316 is apparently a strong radio source as the central massive black hole devours in-falling material.

Image quality is not too good (noisy, heavy processing and a gradient), but it is the best I could get from ~3.5 hours between clouds on two nights. Maybe it is just good enough to show what an impressive object this is. Hope the sky gets a bit kinder and allows enough data for a full res image (had to software bin to boost the very modest SNR in this effort). Image cropped about 50% for composition. Thanks for looking. Regards ray