The Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253)

My first wide field Galaxy photo, 6 months after getting my first Telescope (a small inexpensive GSO 6" Newtonian Reflector) .

 

Ancient light from a Galaxy far, far away (situated 11.42 million light years from Earth).

 

The Sculptor Galaxy, also known as the Silver Coin or Silver Dollar Galaxy (NGC 253), is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. It is a Starburst galaxy, which means that it is undergoing a period of intense star formation (well it was 11.42 million years ago, as the light took that long to reach us).

 

Recent research suggests the presence in the centre of this Galaxy of a Supermassive Black Hole, with a mass estimated to be 5 million times that of our Sun.

 

Photographed at the West Rand Astronomy Club's Annual Star Party at Mountain Sanctuary Park (North-West Province, South Africa). A special thank you to Neil Viljoen from "The Telescope Shop" for his assistance.

 

Astrometry info:

Center RA, Dec: 11.885, -25.297

Center RA, hms: 00h 47m 32.295s

Center Dec, dms: -25° 17' 48.899"

Size: 74.4 x 56.8 arcmin

Radius: 0.780 deg

Pixel scale: 4.36 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: Up is 18.2 degrees E of N

 

View the Annotated Astrometry Sky Chart.

View in the World Wide Telescope.

 

Gear:

GSO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian Reflector Telescope (Astrograph).

Celestron Advanced VX Equatorial Mount.

Orion 50mm Guide Scope.

Orion StarShoot AutoGuider (Guiding in PHD2).

Image Acquisition via Sequence Generator Pro.

Canon 60Da DSLR (sensitive to IR light at 656.28 nm).

Astronomik CLS Light Pollution Filter.

Processed in PixInsight & Photoshop.

 

Lights/Subs:

30 x Stacked 5 min. RAW exposures at ISO 1600.

Calibration Frames:

30 x Darks (Dark frames)

30 x Flats (Flat-field frames)

40 x Bias (Offset frames)

 

Martin

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Done