Subframes were taken during
23 nights, total
35 hours. But the image is not as good as supposed to be given its exposure time. The main reason is very low altitude: NGC 247 culminates only at 25 degrees at my imaging site.
NGC 247 is relatively small intermediate spiral galaxy about 11.1 Mly away in the constellation Cetus.
It is one of several galaxies that is gravitationally bound to the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253). They form a small core in the center of the
Sculptor Group, which is one of the nearest groups of galaxies to the Milky Way.
NGC 247 displays one particularly unusual and mysterious feature -
void, a gap that spans almost a third of the galaxy’s total length.
There are stars within this void, but they are quite different from those around it. They are significantly older, and as a result much fainter and redder. This indicates that the star formation taking place across most of the galaxy’s disc has somehow been arrested in the void region, and has not taken place for around one billion years. Although astronomers are still unsure how the void formed, recent studies suggest it might have been caused by gravitational interactions with part of another galaxy.
Another prominent feature seen on image is a
Burbidge Chain - the group of 5 galaxies at a distance ~ 350 Mly
Close up of Burbidge Chain:
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