Star Streams of NGC4216

[Ken Crawford (KenC)]

Hello,

Over the last couple of years I have been lucky enough to be working with an international team of astronomers lead by Dr. David Martinez-Delgado from the Max-Planck institute for astronomy. This team also consists of a small group of amateur astronomers using modest equipment who take deep images of galaxies, hoping to detect stellar streams. The amateur team is coordinated by R. Jay Gabany and you can read about the pilot survey here;

http://www.cosmotography.com/images/stellar_stream_survey_overview.html

This image of NGC4216 shows faint stream of a galaxy merger and is currently being studied and represents one of my contributions to the project. You will notice an inverted image which helps show the faint stream and spikes in higher contrast. It is amazing to be able to look back into time and find these galaxies in different stages of merger and development. It is in many ways, galaxy archaeology.

I have had to wait until now to be able to release this image as the data is almost two years old. The stream was confirmed with the 4.2 meter WHT in R-band and the AJ paper was accepted.


http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Galaxies/NGC4216/NGC4216.htm


If you would like some extra reading on the subject, here is a link to the Astronomical Journal Paper http://arxiv4.library.cornell.edu/abs/1003.4860

Kindest Regards,

[desler]

Really quite speacial Ken. Thanks for sharing.

Darren

[astroron (Ron)]

Brilliant work there Ken and congratulations for being part of a team who's paper was excepted

[Hagar (Doug)]

Lovely Ken. The whispy tails are a treat. Thanks for posting it here.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Nice shots and interesting write up. Imagine being on a planet orbiting a star in one of those tidal arms looking straight down at the galaxy face-on. What a dream location for an astro-photographer hey? No obstruction what so ever. You wouldn't even image the same thing twice.

[gregbradley]

A fabulous image Ken. I love these tidal stream galaxy images.

I wonder which Southern galaxies would make a target for this sort of image. I'd be happy to image some with my 17 inch scope.

Greg.

[Ken Crawford (KenC)]

Thanks for the kind comments. Yes, it is an interesting journy working with professionals and their paper writing process. There are several more in the works but it seems to take forever.

The cool thing is that the astronomers at Max-Planck measured our data and we are getting down to better than 28 mag/square arc/sec from my backyard.

The great off the self equipment and modern processing software makes this all possible (with dark skies of course)

[lebowski (Paolo)]

wonderful ken

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Lovely work Ken

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Fascinating stuff & exquisite image Ken!

Cheers, Marcus

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Yeh excellent and interesting work Ken :thum bsup: (one more than Marcus )

Mike

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Yeh excellent and interesting work Ken :thum bsup: (one more than Marcus )

Mike

Here's the one that didn't come out properly:

[Paul Haese]

Incredible image as usual Ken. Love the detail in the main subject. The streams are interesting too.

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Outstanding result Ken. My compliment also for your patient, It mustn't have been easy keep waiting to release such a picture for two years
Love those tidal effects on galaxies, please keep these pics flowing, unless other papers are still waiting for acceptance

Clear Skies
Marco

[Martin Pugh]

A 2 year wait Ken to publish!?

Regardless, these are very challenging targets requiring large aperture (20" in your case) and as you say, dark skies.

Superb image all round.

cheers
Martin

[Ken Crawford (KenC)]

Originally Posted by Martin Pugh

A 2 year wait Ken to publish!?

Regardless, these are very challenging targets requiring large aperture (20" in your case) and as you say, dark skies.

Superb image all round.

cheers
Martin

Thanks Martin, almost 2 years (1 year 8 months or so) anyway the PI wanted us to hold off until the paper was through peer review and published first.

BTW some of the star stream shots I have done with a 14" and a 5"

[Fabiomax (Fabiomassimo)]

Wonderful image and very very interesting research field!
Fabiomax

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Terrific shots. I have always been fascinated by the one on NGC 3628 goes out quite a distance.

[Ken Crawford (KenC)]

Originally Posted by Astroman

Terrific shots. I have always been fascinated by the one on NGC 3628 goes out quite a distance.

Thanks,

Yes, that is an interesing tidal tail but it is different than the star streams we are looking for. What we are looking for is the distruction trail when a dwarf galaxy gets torn apart and becomes part of the larger galaxy.

Regards,