NGC 5128 - Centaurus A (Alex Woronow)

NGC 5128 - Centaurus A

NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)

OTA: TAO 150 (f/7.3)

Camera: FLI - ML16200

Observatory: Deep Sky West, Chile

EXPOSURES: (used/taken)

Red: 11/16 x 900 sec.

Blue: 15/17 x 900

Green: 11/16 x 900

Lum.: 17/24 x 900

H: 22/27 x 1800

Total exposure used 24.5 hours

Image Width: ~1.3 deg

Processed by Alex Woronow using PixInsight, SWT*, StarNet++ and Topaz in 2019

Centaurus A is the 5th brightest galaxy in the sky. This galaxy, lying at a distance of ~12M light-years, is the nearest active-core galaxy (actively generating a plethora of new stars). It is called a “star-burst” galaxy and is an active radio-wave, X-ray, and gamma-ray emitter with a super-massive black hole at its center. Jets of aged stars and dust, streaming outward above and below the galactic plane, reach speeds approaching 50% the speed of light! Modeling suggests that the shape of this peculiar galaxy resulted from a collision and merging of a large elliptical galaxy with a smaller spiral galaxy**.

(Source: largely Wikipedia)

This Image: The highlight of this image is the detail in the equatorial dust lane, I believe. The star colors are photometrically calibrated, as is the broader galaxy. The dust lane has been reddened slightly to enhance some of the lateral color variations. Measurement of the selected and stacked Luminosity images yielded a median FWHM for the larger stars of 2.18 pixels or a point diffraction σ close to 1.0 arcsecond. With pixel size of 1.13 arcseconds, the instrument’s Nyquist resolution of ~3.4 arcseconds is being easily achieved.

*SWT (Subframe Weighting Tool) is an Excel Spreadsheet I developed for assigning weights to subframes based on user-selected image attributes and relative weights. SWT is available upon request: Alex(-at-)awkml.com.

**Many details can be perused in Internal Kinematics and Dynamics of Galaxies (p.334).

Original
Final
B

B

Description: after a little Photolemur3 activity

Uploaded: ...

Unique or Unusal Deep Sky Targets
The refractors!
Arp's Peculiar Galaxies
Objects of the South - negative declination only
Takahashi Refractors

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2815513
PixInsight job	RJY41G1TGVQUFFB4Q5A8WX944QF1E1Q3
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	13h25m29s.35
RA (top/left)	13h28m49s.82
RA (top/right)	13h21m23s.85
RA (bottom/right)	13h22m05s.50
RA (bottom/left)	13h29m38s.50

Dec (center)	-43°01′01″.10
Dec (top/left)	-42°22′37″.1
Dec (top/right)	-42°33′08″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	-43°38′54″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	-43°28′22″.7

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