Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Corvus (Crv)  ·  Contains:  Antennae Galaxies  ·  NGC 4038  ·  NGC 4039
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NGC 4038/9, Tom Harrison
NGC 4038/9
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Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 4038/9, Tom Harrison
NGC 4038/9
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Description

The Antennae", NGC4038/39 is a pair of colliding galaxies in the direction of the Constellation Corvus, previously thought to be 65 Million Light-Years distant, but now thought to be about 45 Million Light-Years away. The pair is the closest and youngest colliding galaxies to our Milky Way having begun their gravitational dance close to a hundred million years ago. The prominent tidal tail arms "antennae" were flung into the void starting around 300 million years ago, and now span around 360,000 Light-Years. The yellow/orange cores of the two galaxies are evident, along with numerous pinkish hydrogen gas star-forming regions, many clusters of giant blue stars, and massive dust clouds from which they were formed. Some of the more massive star clusters may survive to become globular clusters. The nuclei of the two will form one giant galaxy sometime in the next 400 million years.

Object: NGC 4038/39 Antennae

Constellation: Corvus

Distance: 45 Million Light-Years

Magnitude: 11.2

Date: March 2009

Place: Fort Davis, TX

Exposure Details: LRGB: 540:180:180:180 unbinned

Processing: MaxIm DL, CCDStack, RegiStar, CCDSharp, Photoshop CS3, and other processing apps and tools

Optics: 12.5" RCOS Truss RC

Focal Length: 2808mm @ f9

Mount: Paramount ME

Camera: STL6303E

Focuser: RCOS

Guiding: Off-Axis using the SBIG guide camera

Filters: Tru-Balance Gen II LRGB

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NGC 4038/9, Tom Harrison