Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr)
SgrA* The center mystery of our galaxy - amazingly rarely imaged, Freestar8n
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SgrA* The center mystery of our galaxy - amazingly rarely imaged

SgrA* The center mystery of our galaxy - amazingly rarely imaged, Freestar8n
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SgrA* The center mystery of our galaxy - amazingly rarely imaged

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This is a view into the very center of our own Milky Way Galaxy - where the SgrA* black hole lurks. For some reason this patch of sky is rarely imaged - I guess because you can't actually see anything right there. But it is nonetheless where many things important to our galaxy are happening.

This is an image that has been calibrated and imaged in Sloan i' r' g' filters to show the colors exactly as they are measured - and clearly it is a very orange/red region obscured by dust. North is up - and it is about 0.4" per pixel.

Imaged with EdgeHD11 at f/7 with ASI1600 on cge-pro guided by MetaGuide. Not much time with only 6 exposures of 300s in each Sloan filter: i' r' g' mapped to RGB. No processing or sharpening other than gradient removal and stretch with levels to reveal faint stars. Photometrically calibrated based on APASS field magnitudes with over 200 field stars.

The inset in the upper left is a zoomed in view of the central region where the black hole is presumed to live. You can see an asterism on the left and an overall ring shape of stars that is identifiable. The ring presumably has no physical meaning since the stars shown are likely foreground stars that have nothing to do with the black hole itself. But nonetheless - this is a view directly into the center of our galaxy. And for some reason - few imagers look there.

Here is a link that shows the region and the asterism right near the center that helps locate it:

http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/NatSci/lectures/galcenter.htm

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SgrA* The center mystery of our galaxy - amazingly rarely imaged, Freestar8n