Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4627  ·  NGC 4631
NGC 4631, Frank Colosimo
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NGC 4631

NGC 4631, Frank Colosimo
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NGC 4631

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Description

NGC 4631 is a huge edge-on spiral galaxy, magnitude 9.8, and commonly known as 'The Whale'. The smaller nearby galaxy is NGC 4627, the 'Pup'. This pair has been included in Arp's Catalog of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 281. There's a bridge of hydrogen gas connecting both galaxies. Distance is estimated at 30 million light years.

Date: Mar 2010

Location: New Ringgold PA

Optics: Meade LX200R 14 inch at f/10

Mount: Paramount ME

Camera/Filters: SBIG STL 11000 camera Baader filters

Guiding: integral guiding chip controlled by Maxim CCD

Exposure: LRGB: Luminance: 33x5 minutes unbinned; RGB: unbinned - R-6x5 min, G- 6x5 min, B- 8x5 min, for a total of 4.4 hours

Processing: Image acquisition using CCD Autopilot. Initial processing was done using Maxim DL with subsequent processing with Photoshop. Cropped, and diffraction spikes courtesy of Star Spikes Pro.

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NGC 4631, Frank Colosimo

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