Ngc 5054

[markas (Mark)]

This little gem was shot last April on the one night near new Moon that was cloud free(ish) at Macedon.
First light for the 300mm RiDK scope with a new Moravian C1X-61000 camera. Seeing was 1.67" (!) maybe helped by the humidity (85 - 93%) plus some burn-off smoke in the area.
This image is a 16' x 13' crop from the full frame 51' x 34' FOV, so most of the extensive galaxy field is missing. Still, there are at least 15 tiny distant galaxies in the cropped image.
Considering this object is between 56 and 83 Mly away and that the major axis is ~5' it exhibits surprising detail.
Incidentally, the strong star in the image is mag -9.89.



Mark

[Dave882 (David)]

That sure is a lovely gem- a really interesting target. Great detail!

[gregbradley]

Haven't seen this one before. A very striking image and good detail.

I assume this galaxy has been warped by the galaxy on the right of it?

Greg.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Lovely shot Mark! great detail for such a small object too. Well done!

[markas (Mark)]

Dave, Greg and Marc
Thanks for your comments - much appreciated.
Greg, the companion dwarf galaxy is PGC 46256. It is likely to be interacting with NGC 5054, but there's not much written about it.



Mark

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

An excellent result Mark, this is a challenging target. You have delineated the colours in the galaxy very well, the decon/sharpening used looks natural and I like the subtle 3D effect you have achieved too, nice job indeed

Awesome scope too

Mike

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks for looking, Mike.

Just as a matter of interest, I counted well over a hundred galaxies in the full 51' x 34' frame - several greater than 2' and the rest tiny...
Mark

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by markas

Thanks for looking, Mike.

Just as a matter of interest, I counted well over a hundred galaxies in the full 51' x 34' frame - several greater than 2' and the rest tiny...
Mark

That's Virgo for ya, the galaxy constellation

You should post the full frame, there is good cluster of galaxies right near 5054

Mike

[Stephane]

That is indeed a nice little gem. Nice detail around core and the background fuzzies are coming out quite nicely too! Great image.

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks for the comments, Stephane.


Mike, here is the full frame. It misses quite a few close objects, but there are plenty of tiny ones on show.


Mark

[Peter Ward]

Ah!.....a well rendered narrow field view.

Rather like stepping out of a the stale air and noise in a pub and taking a breath of fresh air.

Some minor technical and processing issues aside, a fine image.

Nice one

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by markas

Thanks for the comments, Stephane.


Mike, here is the full frame. It misses quite a few close objects, but there are plenty of tiny ones on show.


Mark

Yeah, that's great ...just a little off the top right, outside your framing, is an entire galaxy cluster...mosaic..?

Mike

[Dave882 (David)]

Wow that’s a lovely field. So glad you posted that!

[markas (Mark)]

Thanks for your comments, Peter. Much appreciated!
Mark