The weather here has been pretty poor for the last couple of months with only small windows of opportunity to image in between anti-astrophotography weather systems. Lately there have
been a few clear nights so here's the latest from Bells Observatory!
This is the spiral galaxy NGC 134 (angular dimensions 8.4 x 1.8 arc minutes) in the constellation of Sculptor. It's apparent size is small so it's not the most photographed spiral galaxy. However, it definitely presents an interesting and beautiful vista with it's companion galaxies, spiral arms and distinct dust lanes. Combined with the bright foreground stars and faint background galaxies, it's as pretty as a picture!
It lies about 60 million light years away in a group of galaxies. NGC 134 is actually larger than the Milky Way, spanning around 150,000 light years. Note the faint extensions on either end which hint at possible gravitational encounters in the past with neighboring galaxies. There are also many HII star forming regions (pink dots) in the spiral arms. At this distance they appear as dots only but up close they would be vast nebulae. We can only imagine that the astro-photographers in that galaxy must be pretty happy with there lot!
The small galaxy to the lower left is NGC 131 and is part of the same galaxy group.
SBIG STXL 11002M, FW8G, AO-X
Officina Stellare ProRC360
This image has been cropped from the full frame for composition purposes.
This is an LLsRGB exposure comprising 18 hours of data (L=360, Ls=180, R=180, G=180, B=180 minutes of exposure)
FOV: 25.5 x 16.8 arcmins @ 0.59 arcsec/pixel
For
full res see:
https://pbase.com/gailmarc/image/171217497/original
For
screen sized see:
https://pbase.com/gailmarc/image/171217495/original
For
zoomable version see:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/marc4d...posted-public/