Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  IC 10
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC 10, astroeyes
IC 10
Powered byPixInsight

IC 10

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Deep in the heart of Cassiopeia lies the nearest starbust galaxy to us. IC 10 is a member of the local group and is only 4.5 MLy away from us. Because it is a dwarf galaxy and because we have to peer through dust clouds in our own galaxy to see it, it is not well known or much observed by amateurs. Not surprisingly it has a large number of very luminous stars and starforming regions which can just be seen in my image.

Dont expect to see much, if anything through the eyepiece - this is a very faint galaxy, about magnitude 13.5. Even worse, it's surface brightness is incredibly low at around 17.3 magnitudes per square arcminute, making it the faintest object I have ever tried to image.

My image, which was acquired and processed entirely in AstroArt3 on September 25th from Weymouth between 10pm and midnight, shows little detail except a few HII regions and an area of dark dust cloud towards the bottom of the image. There appears to be no resolvable structure to the galaxy and in that respect it is a typical irregular dwarf galaxy.

This image consists of 75 x 60 second unguided exposures colour converted, summed and noise reduced in AstroArt. It represents the limits of my patience and imaging ability with my present setup!

Hope you find it of some interest.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

IC 10, astroeyes