Finally got some colour data for this galaxy cluster...which given the time I spent on this sucker is something of a disappointment, as most of the galaxies are yellowed, I suspect by their considerable distance and intervening dust & gas, plus the bulk of the field stars saturated out to white.
That said, the image is quite deep...the original data would suggest mag 20...not bad for a telescope in a suburban back-yard
Hi Peter,
it is really good to see an amateur image of this very rich cluster, which is part of the Centaurus-Hydra supercluster structure, that includes the Centaurus Cluster of Galaxies and the Hydra Cluster of galaxies.
Centaurus is full of wonderful galaxy-fields of moderately bright (Blue 13-15 magn.) galaxies, to the degree that one would be tempted to say that it is the most unknown of the constellations.
By far the brightest galaxy in your field is actually IC 4329, which is a vast and distended supergiant elliptical (or mild S0) galaxy. Most of the other galaxies in this cluster are elliptical galaxies or S0 galaxies, and this cluster is actually remarkably rich when we include all the very numerous faint galaxies.
This cluster is, in reality, actually known as the IC 4329 cluster.
Its other official name is its Abell Catalog identifier: Abell 3574
This cluster includes many gems, such as the edge-on galaxy right near to IC 4329 which has a super-intense Seyfert nucleus, and the distorted pair NGC 5291 plus "the Seashell"
cheers,
the bad galaxy man
Of course, at this distance the galaxies are small in angular terms....they need more pixels on them to make each galaxy look like an individual.
The Antlia Cluster (NGC 3268 etc.) is somewhat nearer to us than this cluster or the Centaurus Cluster or the Hydra Cluster, so it is easier to get each galaxy in the Antlia Cluster of Galaxies looking like an individual when imaging it.
Last edited by madbadgalaxyman; 11-05-2012 at 06:15 PM.
Reason: more
