NGC 2146 - Dusty Hand Galaxy - Barred Spiral in Camelopardalis (Ben Koltenbah)

NGC 2146 - Dusty Hand Galaxy - Barred Spiral in Camelopardalis

This is an image mostly featuring NGC 2146, a barred spiral in Camelopardalis. It is commonly named the Dusty Hand Galaxy. It is located at a declination of +78 deg, which places it close to the NGP. I think this is actually the highest declination object that I've ever imaged. One could in principle image it at my latitude (47 deg N) all night long at practically any time of the year.

The main feature of this galaxy is a spiral arm, distinguished as a dusty lane that lies across the brighter core, which has been bent 45 deg by a smaller galaxy possibly about 800 My ago. It is thought that this encounter is the cause of a relatively high rate of star formation, designating this as a starburst galaxy.

There was a supernova SN 2005V discovered Jan 30, 2005. Now almost 13 years later this SN is not really distinguishable anymore. It was located almost dead center just to the left of the core in my image. I can see a brighter region there, but I think that's just associated with the core itself, not the SN. I looked up some images shortly after the event, and SN 2005V was a typically bright point of light, distinctively brighter than any other part of the galaxy.

The smaller galaxy upper left in my image is NGC 2146A, thought to be in close proximity to NGC 2146 and the cause for the warping of the spiral arm and activation of starbursts.

This was a single night of imaging, but I was able to use 4 hr of integration time. I had some guidance issues and cable drag that caused the stars to go oblong. I hope to return to it and try again.

Original
B
C
Final
D

B

Description: Inverted L Image

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Annotated L Image

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: Updated L Image - more aggressive noise reduction

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1875670
PixInsight job	RTSIP1AQH5TZDEN3F44JK70GIQEB1MLR
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	06h20m54s.10
RA (top/left)	06h26m24s.40
RA (top/right)	06h15m25s.63
RA (bottom/right)	06h15m36s.34
RA (bottom/left)	06h26m10s.50

Dec (center)	+78°25′28″.5
Dec (top/left)	+78°38′04″.7
Dec (top/right)	+78°38′14″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	+78°12′28″.2
Dec (bottom/left)	+78°12′20″.7

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