Kwychang
NGC5981, NGC5982, NGC5985
There are 3 galaxies in this image taken from my back garden on the 10th of May, the night of the stunning aurora we all witnessed. They are NGC 5981 120 million light years away, NGC 5982 123 million light years away and NGC 5985 140 million light years away.
Look more closely and you'll notice quite a few more galaxies hiding in this image. There are quite a lot more that my camera couldn't pick up.
At the heart of NGC 5982 lies a black hole thought to be 830,000,000 solar masses.
For context, our Sun is 1 Solar mass, equivalent to 333,000 Earths.
Boring techie bit:
Skywatcher Quattro 8" Newtonian Reflector steel tube with the f4 aplanatic coma corrector, Skywatcher EQ6 R pro mount, Altair Starwave 50mm guide scope, ZWO asi120mm guide camera mini, ZWO asi533mc pro cooled to -20c gain 100, Optolong L'enhance 2" filter, ZWO filter drawer, ZWO asiair plus.
180s exposures.
Best 80% of 45 light frames.
Darks, Flats & Bias.
Stacked with DeepSkyStacker and processed in StarTools.
NGC5981, NGC5982, NGC5985
There are 3 galaxies in this image taken from my back garden on the 10th of May, the night of the stunning aurora we all witnessed. They are NGC 5981 120 million light years away, NGC 5982 123 million light years away and NGC 5985 140 million light years away.
Look more closely and you'll notice quite a few more galaxies hiding in this image. There are quite a lot more that my camera couldn't pick up.
At the heart of NGC 5982 lies a black hole thought to be 830,000,000 solar masses.
For context, our Sun is 1 Solar mass, equivalent to 333,000 Earths.
Boring techie bit:
Skywatcher Quattro 8" Newtonian Reflector steel tube with the f4 aplanatic coma corrector, Skywatcher EQ6 R pro mount, Altair Starwave 50mm guide scope, ZWO asi120mm guide camera mini, ZWO asi533mc pro cooled to -20c gain 100, Optolong L'enhance 2" filter, ZWO filter drawer, ZWO asiair plus.
180s exposures.
Best 80% of 45 light frames.
Darks, Flats & Bias.
Stacked with DeepSkyStacker and processed in StarTools.