Bootes Starburst Galaxy (Tim Stone)

Bootes Starburst Galaxy

This is an image I took a couple of weeks ago, and am just now getting around to processing and distributing. It's a field in Bootes that includes a relatively nondescript galaxy. This 19th magnitude galaxy, noted in the image by brackets, has recently been identified as one with a record level of starburst activity. The starburst in this galaxy is so intense it's at the limit of how much stellar construction can occur without blowing the galaxy apart. This limit is called the Eddington Limit, and is discussed in the paper about this galaxy here.

The galaxy is designated SDSS J150636.30+540220.9. I took the image because I thought the news story was interesting and I wanted to see if I could find the galaxy. The JPL release is here. This galaxy has a z (redshift quantity) of .608. This puts its distance (light travel time) at around 5.7 billion light years. It turns out it's brighter than one might think, probably because of the starburst activity.

So how do I know this is the actual galaxy? I went to wikisky.org and entered the galaxy's SDSS designation (which happens to be its RA/Dec as well), and it took me right to it. I then compared my image with the SDSS image, and they match precisely. The SDSS image and data is here.

This image is a stack of two luminance exposures with the 17" Planewave and the Apogee U16M on May 12, 2013 beginning at 1:48 am. The first exposure was 300 seconds, and the second was 600 seconds. I summed them in stacking, for a total of 900 seconds exposure.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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