NGC 247 and the Burbidge Chain (Timothy Martin)

NGC 247 and the Burbidge Chain

This is NGC 247, a galaxy that is roughly 11.1 million light years away in the Cetus constellation. It’s part of the Sculptor group of galaxies and is unusual in several respects. First, at 70,000 light years across, it straddles the line between galaxy and dwarf galaxy. Second, its outer stars orbit the nucleus at a much higher speed than the inner stars, indicating that it is engulfed in a larger-than-usual concentration of dark matter. And third, it contains a large void—clearly visible in this picture on the left. No one knows what caused the void, but the one major theory is that it interacted with another galaxy in the distant past—perhaps the main Sculptor galaxy, NGC 253. Another theory is that, for lack of raw material, the region simply hasn’t formed any new stars in more than a billion years.

One reason I became interested in shooting this galaxy is that it’s visually accompanied by four far more distant galaxies (up to 70 million light years distant) known as Burbidge’s Chain. The chain was first discovered by Geoffrey Burbidge, Margaret Burbidge, and Fred Hoyle in 1963. It’s thought to be a series of galaxies that formed and travel together. It’s visible in the lower left of the frame.

I think this is a gorgeous galaxy and I feel fortunate to have been able to get a shot of it. It won’t be visible in a few weeks until next summer. And even then, it lives in the most light-polluted region of our local sky. So only a trip to Big Bend enabled me to get it.

Information credit: Annals of the Deep Sky, Volume 5, Kanipe & Webb (2017).

Original
B
Final
C

B

Description: Applied SPCC, BXT, and NXT

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6883620
PixInsight job	U6K1Z59YBW0NPL0W69VWI0CCUL3XYKEP
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h47m09s.400
RA (top/left)	00h46m03s.286
RA (top/right)	00h46m10s.583
RA (bottom/right)	00h48m15s.951
RA (bottom/left)	00h48m08s.130

Dec (center)	-20°45′35″.43
Dec (top/left)	-20°24′16″.49
Dec (top/right)	-21°08′06″.23
Dec (bottom/right)	-21°06′55″.30
Dec (bottom/left)	-20°23′04″.64

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