Camera: FLI ProLine PL16303E Scope: Planewave 20" CDK Exposure times: L: 12 x 300s (1 hour) R, G, B: 6 x 300s (30m per channel) Total exposure time: 2.5 hours Description from APOD: Explanation: Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax galaxy cluster. This sharp color image shows intense star forming regions at the ends of the bar and along the spiral arms, and details of dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole. Discovered on October 27, the position of a bright supernova is indicated in NGC 1365. Cataloged as SN2012fr, the type Ia supernova is the explosion of a white dwarf star. Special thanks to John Noble for sharing the data!
About 40,000 light-years across, M83 is popularly known as the Southern Pinwheel for its pronounced spiral arms. But the wealth of reddish star forming regions found near the edges of the arms' thick dust lanes, also suggest another popular moniker for M83, the Thousand-Ruby Galaxy. Camera: FLI ProLine PL09000 Scope: Planewave 20" CDK Exposure times: L: 8 x 600s R, G, B: 6 x 300s (30m per channel) Total exposure time: ~3 hours hours Again only 3 hours of data are sufficient to reveal a wealth of interesting details. Many many fainter galaxies can be counted in the background. Special thanks to John Noble for sharing the data!
NGC 7331 (also known as Caldwell 30) is a spiral galaxy about 40 megalight-years (12 Mpc) away in the constellation Pegasus. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. NGC 7331 is the brightest member of the NGC 7331 Group of galaxies. [Description from Wikipedia] The galaxy is similar in size and structure to the galaxy we inhabit, and is often referred to as "the Milky Way's twin", although recent discoveries regarding the structure of the Milky Way may call this similarity into doubt Technical Details: (RA, Dec) center: (339.271585999, 34.4194478982) degrees Orientation: 0.20016608734 deg E of N Pixel scale: 0.651006126966 arcsec/pixel Acquired on August 10, 2013 from Blue Canyon, Ca L: 8 x 20m R,G,B:8 x 10m each (2x2 bin) Pixel scale: 0.65 arcsec/pixel Total exposure time: ~6.5 hours Main Camera: QSI 583 WSG Guide Camera: SXV Lodestar (on OAG) Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1 Scope: Celestron Edge HD 8" (FL: 2145 mm) SXV Adaptive Optics Image Aquisition software MaximDL Registed, Calibrated and Stacked in MaximDL Post Processed entirely with PixInsight 1.8
