Terry Robison
NGC 253 – The Sculptor Galaxy
NGC 253 – the Sculptor Galaxy is located at a distance of 11.42 million light years and can be found in the Constellation Sculptor. It is also known by a few other names, sometimes referred to as Silver Coin or Silver Dollar Galaxy. A good set of binoculars will allow you to view this beautiful object as it is fairly large and bright at Magnitude 8. Recent research suggests the presence of a supermassive black hole located at the centre of the galaxy, with a mass estimated to be 5 million times that of our Sun.
This galaxy is a Star Burst Galaxy. Specifically, a galaxy that is still undergoing a period of intense star formation. I decided to take some Ha data and throw it into the mix to see what this would produce. There was a surprising amount of Ha being emitted from the galaxy. On fact, huge areas of the galaxy were emitting this wave length. These are the bright red areas seen in the image.
There are a number of red supergiant stars that can be located within the galaxy. Several young stars are located within the halo region as well as some neutral hydrogen.
The image was created by gathering luminance and colour data from a dark sky site. The high resolution component is contained within the luminance channel. Colour was created by combining Red, Green, and Blue filtered light. The result serves as the colour base of the image. The Ha component was captured from Melbourne, Australia, through a narrow band Ha filter. This was blended with the L-RGB image to create an image containing Lum, Ha, and RGB data. The result is a colour image that highlights the areas emitting a Hydrogen-Alpha signal.
Processing of the image. All images were calibrated, aligned, and stacked with CCDStack2 for each filter. The resulting images where then combined, processed, and enhanced with Photoshop CS 6.
Instruments used:
Telescope: ........... 10" Ritchey-Chrétien (RCOS)
Focal Length: ........ 2305.00 mm
Camera: .............. SBIG STL-11000 Mono
Pixel size: .......... 9.00 um
Resolution: .......... 0.82 arcsec/pix
Mount: ............... Astro-Physics AP-900
Filters: ............. Astodon: L, R, G, B filters / Baader: Ha 7 nm
Exposures:
15 X 600 Ha
12 X 600 Lum
8 X 500 Red
8 X 500 Blue
8 X 500 Green
Location:
Dark Sky Site: ..... Heathcote, Vic, Australia
Narrowband Site: ... Melbourn, Vic, Australia
NGC 253 – The Sculptor Galaxy
NGC 253 – the Sculptor Galaxy is located at a distance of 11.42 million light years and can be found in the Constellation Sculptor. It is also known by a few other names, sometimes referred to as Silver Coin or Silver Dollar Galaxy. A good set of binoculars will allow you to view this beautiful object as it is fairly large and bright at Magnitude 8. Recent research suggests the presence of a supermassive black hole located at the centre of the galaxy, with a mass estimated to be 5 million times that of our Sun.
This galaxy is a Star Burst Galaxy. Specifically, a galaxy that is still undergoing a period of intense star formation. I decided to take some Ha data and throw it into the mix to see what this would produce. There was a surprising amount of Ha being emitted from the galaxy. On fact, huge areas of the galaxy were emitting this wave length. These are the bright red areas seen in the image.
There are a number of red supergiant stars that can be located within the galaxy. Several young stars are located within the halo region as well as some neutral hydrogen.
The image was created by gathering luminance and colour data from a dark sky site. The high resolution component is contained within the luminance channel. Colour was created by combining Red, Green, and Blue filtered light. The result serves as the colour base of the image. The Ha component was captured from Melbourne, Australia, through a narrow band Ha filter. This was blended with the L-RGB image to create an image containing Lum, Ha, and RGB data. The result is a colour image that highlights the areas emitting a Hydrogen-Alpha signal.
Processing of the image. All images were calibrated, aligned, and stacked with CCDStack2 for each filter. The resulting images where then combined, processed, and enhanced with Photoshop CS 6.
Instruments used:
Telescope: ........... 10" Ritchey-Chrétien (RCOS)
Focal Length: ........ 2305.00 mm
Camera: .............. SBIG STL-11000 Mono
Pixel size: .......... 9.00 um
Resolution: .......... 0.82 arcsec/pix
Mount: ............... Astro-Physics AP-900
Filters: ............. Astodon: L, R, G, B filters / Baader: Ha 7 nm
Exposures:
15 X 600 Ha
12 X 600 Lum
8 X 500 Red
8 X 500 Blue
8 X 500 Green
Location:
Dark Sky Site: ..... Heathcote, Vic, Australia
Narrowband Site: ... Melbourn, Vic, Australia