NGC 4731

I think this is a great field to explore. Spread throughout the frame, you can see many galaxies. Almost all of those small brown funky-shaped smudges are galaxies. There are hundreds, how cool is that? The galaxy in the centre is NGC 7431. A barred spiral galaxy some 65 million years away near the Virgo supercluster. The colours come through fairly well showing the lovely blues where young stars are present in the arms. This galaxy is similar in size, but just a little smaller than our own galaxy, The Milky Way.

 

This galaxy shares a characteristic of many in the Virgo cluster. The tugging of gravitational forces with nearby galaxies has resulted in the distorted arms seen here. These forces can result in magnificently shaped galaxies, to some peculiarly shaped objects.

 

Instruments:

Telescope: 10" Ritchey-Chrétien RCOS

Camera: SBIG STL-11000 Mono

Mount: Astro-Physics AP-900

Focal Length: 2310.00 mm

Pixel size: 9.00 um

Resolution: 0.82 arcsec/pix

 

Exposure Details:

Red 20X600 Bin1

Green 12X600 Bin1

Blue 18X600 Bin1

Lum 48X600 Bin1

 

Total Exposure: 16.33 Hours

 

Thanks for looking…

 

Link to higher resolution: live.staticflickr.com/65535/53023373156_776f33abac_o.jpg

 

Done