Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Hydra (Hya)  ·  Contains:  M 83  ·  NGC 5236
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Messier 83 / NGC 5236 / Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, Terry Robison
Messier 83 / NGC 5236 / Southern Pinwheel Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

Messier 83 / NGC 5236 / Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Messier 83 / NGC 5236 / Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, Terry Robison
Messier 83 / NGC 5236 / Southern Pinwheel Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

Messier 83 / NGC 5236 / Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

NGC 5236 is a beautiful barred spiral galaxy located just 15 million light-years away. It occupies an area of 12.9 X 11.5 arcmin of the sky. To give this value some perspective, the diameter of the full moon is 31 arcmin or ½ degree in diameter. When I first started processing the data for this galaxy, it struck me just how fortunate I was in locating a suitable guide star. At times I can’t image an object as there are no suitable guide stars in the field. When target selections are out of the galactic plane, locating an appropriate guide star can become an issue with the narrow field of view present in the Off-Axis Guider (OAG), around 5.5 arcmins. Its presentation and orientation of M83 really couldn’t get any better. I can look and explore the details for long extended periods. It has well-defined arms containing very active and bright Ha within these areas. Tiny wispy threads are visible at the ends of the galaxy arms. If you look carefully, dark vanes present within the dimmest parts. And, to top it off, the many tiny galaxies distributed throughout really complete the scene. Yep, it’s been on my todo list for years, and hopefully, I have done it justice.

The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy has a Magnitude of 7.54, making it one of the brightest barred spiral galaxies our the sky. This is a massive grand design spiral and is about one half the size of our galaxy, The Milky Way. Grand design spiral is an appropriate name for this classification.

It seems that every galaxy I process is very different. I love the symmetry of this object, and how the large amount of Ha areas along the arms add a level of dimension to the image. Images from the high-resolution Hubble telescope reveal interstellar bubbles produced by nearly 300 supernovae. Six recent supernova explosions recorded in The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy include SN 1923A, SN 1945B, SN 1950B, SN 1957D, SN 1968L, and SN 1983N.

Instruments Used:

• 10 Inch RCOS fl 9.1

• Astro Physics AP-900 Mount

• SBIG STL 11000m

• FLI Filter Wheel

• Astrodon Luminance, Red, Green, Blue Filters

• Baader Planetarium H-alpha 7nm Narrowband-Filter

Acquisition Details

• Luminance 35 X 900 seconds

• Ha 36 X 1200 seconds

• Blue 12 X 900 seconds

• Green 8 X 900 seconds

• Red 7 X 900 seconds

Total Time: 27.5 Hours

Comments