"A high resolution and sensitivty telescope has been used to access the core of NGC 253. Then has been observed that molecular gas and dust are distributed mainly in a circumnuclear disk of ~500 pc radius, with warm (~40 K) and high area filling factor gas in its central part.

Two gas shells or cavities have been discovered in the circumnuclear disk. They have ~100 pc diameters and have large velocity widths of 80-100 km/s, suggestive of expansion at ~50 km/s.

Modeled as an expanding bubble, each shell has an age of ~0.5 Myr and needed kinetic energy of ~1 × 1046 J, as well as mean mechanical luminosity of ~1 × 1033 W, for its formation. The large energy allows each to be called a superbubble. A ~106 M☉ super star cluster can provide the luminosity and could be a building block of the nuclear starburst in NGC 253. Alternatively, a hypernova can also be the main source of energy for each superbubble, not only because it can provide the mechanical energy and luminosity but also because the estimated rate of superbubble formation and that of hypernova explosions are comparable. Our observations indicate that the circumnuclear molecular disk harboring the starburst is highly disturbed on 100 pc or smaller scales, presumably by individual young clusters and stellar explosions, in addition to being globally disturbed in the form of the well-known superwind."

That is an outlined version of a reasearch conducted on 2006 regarding NGC 253. If you want to get the full article, once it is very interesting and sort of descriptive, the link is:

http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/636/2/685/pdf/0004-637X_636_2_685.pdf

From the article, one can convclude that NGC 253 might help us to understand how the galaxies have been evolving over the time.

Some Databook Information For NGC 253

Right Ascension: 00:47.6 (h:m)

Declination: -25:17 (deg:m)

Distance: ~ 10 million light years

Apparent Dimension: 26.4 x 6 (arc min)

Magnittude: 7.2

Object Type: Barred Spiral Galaxy

Image Details:

Luminance: 35x900sec bin 1x1

Blue: 15x600sec bin 2x2

Red: 15x600sec bin 2x2

Green: 12x600sec bin 2x2

Telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 120mm f/7

CCD: Trius SX-694

StarLight Express Mini Filter Wheel and OAG

CCD Guiding: Lodestar

Capture and guiding software: MaxIm DL 6.0

Mount: EQ-6 Pro

Processing: PixInsight

Bias, Darks and Flats applied

A word about Rev-2:

This revision had some old frames included in the mix. In addition, used a different workflow for combining Luminance to the RGB and respective sharpening and denoising.

I hope you enjoy this new release.

Fernando