Hi all,
Here's what I think is my first image of a black hole - well at least the observable effects that it is having on the surrounding areas of the galaxy that it occupies - NGC 1097.
This is one of my favourite galaxies NGC 1097, a fine example of a spiral-barred galaxy. This galaxy is about 45-Million light years away in the southern constellation of Fornax and is accompanied by a companion galaxy NGC 1097A. A very large black hole is thought to exist at the core of this galaxy, and this image reveals the feeding process of the black hole. You can see large amounts of matter spiralling into toward the core.
The second image is a 3x enlargement of the core region which was masked to reveal details. At the very centre of the galaxy we can see a bright yellowish object surrounded by a dark area which appears to be the black hole's immediate zone of influence. The bright bluish ring are massive star forming regions surrounding the black hole. A prominent lane of dark matter can be seen running diagonally from top right to centre image. This dark matter is making its way to the galaxy core where it seems to spiral around the star forming region before it eventually is consumed by the black hole.
Theres are slightly higher resolution version of the images here:
http://www.skylab.com.au/pmsa/galaxy.html
I did the images with my GSO 12" telescope manually guided with my 4.5" guidescope and using the new Baader coma corrector. The images were taken with the Canon EOS 300 D. The seeing was one of the best nights ever.
Looks like weather is clearing again for tonight...
Paul
