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Old 03-10-2014, 11:12 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
Highest Observatory in Oz

strongmanmike is offline
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Canberra
Posts: 17,689
The "true" giant in Sculptor

This is my first "real" image taken from the new observatory at Terroux

At 17.5hrs total exposure, taken over 4 nights, it is also my longest exposure so far of any object taken with the AG12 and the first to pass the 1000min mark
Unfortunately some of the Luminance data was collected while a crescent to first 1/4 Moon was still up and the seeing varied considerably over the 4 nights but in the end I decided to use every single sub to make the image.

A rarely imaged galaxy, NGC 289 is listed in LEDA as quite small at 5.6' X 4.2' with the brightest inner reverse 'S' shaped area only about 3' in diameter. However, in a deep exposure with the 12" at F3.8 it is clearly revealed to be much bigger with the faintest decernable very low surface brightness outer spiral arms (~27mag/sq arc sec) spanning a whopping 14 arc min! So, at the published distance of some 75 Million light years this equates to an actual dimension for the galaxy of some 300 000 light years across...and that's huge

Click on the links below

Hope you enjoy the view

NGC 289

300 000 light years across

Full Frame Image

Close in crop of core

Also attached two nightscapes taken on the first (moonless) night as the Milky Way was waving good bye and then later Orion was charging overhead

The observatory and equipment all performed flawlessly for all 4 nights so I'm very happy about that.

Mike
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (Orion over Terroux small.jpg)
163.0 KB145 views
Click for full-size image (Milky Way over Terroux small.jpg)
142.8 KB164 views
Click for full-size image (NGC-289-LRGB-final-trim3-rot-sat-crop.jpg)
102.6 KB226 views

Last edited by strongmanmike; 08-10-2014 at 01:49 AM.
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