NGC 253 'Silver Coin' galaxy in Sculptor (20.7 hours) (Barry Brook)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sculptor (Scl) · Contains: NGC 253 · Sculptor galaxy

NGC 253 'Silver Coin' galaxy in Sculptor (20.7 hours)

A deep integration of the famous galaxy (brightest member of the Sculptor group). With a visual magnitude of 8.0, it is appears as a long, oval bulge and mottled disk, some 25' x 7' min size (true size of some 70,000 light years across), with complex dust lanes north of the core.

It is part of a group of galaxies located 11.4 million light years from the Milky Way, and is viewed by us almost side on spiral (Sc type), giving it the shape of a coin. There is intense starburst activity in its outer arms, and some prominent HII regions, whereas the core is older and redder with a 5 million solar mass black hole at its centre.

The image was captured from my Adelaide surburban backyard, using an Orion ED80T CT apo astrograph (at f/4.8), mounted on an AZ-EQ6. The CCD camera was an Orion StarShoot G3 mono, guided with PHD2 using a think OAG and an ASI120MM-S guide camera.

The image is composed of the following:

Lum = 62 x 5 min

Ha = 15 x 10 min

R, G & B = 52 x 5 min for each channel

After rejections, this led to a total integration time of 20.7 hours.

I used a synthetic luminance channel by blending an exposure-based weighting of the L, Ha, R, G and B luminances. All subs were unbinned.

Captured over the period 24 Aug to 2 Sept 2014, as weather permitted. Pre-processed with flats (light box), bad pixel map (based on 70 darks) and bias in Nebulosity. Aligned and Drizzled in DSS. Post-processed in StarTools.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	359350
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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NGC 253 'Silver Coin' galaxy in Sculptor (20.7 hours)

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NGC 253 'Silver Coin' galaxy in Sculptor (20.7 hours)

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