Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Centaurus (Cen)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4945  ·  The star ξ1 Cen
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NGC 4945 in Centaurus, Bruce Rohrlach
NGC 4945 in Centaurus
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NGC 4945 in Centaurus

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 4945 in Centaurus, Bruce Rohrlach
NGC 4945 in Centaurus
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 4945 in Centaurus

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Description

The main subject of the Saturday 26th March imaging run from home in Lysterfield in Melbourne’s outer east - NGC 4945.

A barred spiral galaxy in Centaurus, just 13 million light years away, and located near the main sequence star Xi1 Centauri. All the stars in front of NGC 4945 are from within our own galaxy. It is one of the brightest galaxies of the Centaurus A/M83 Group, a nearby group of 44 known galaxies.

The Milky Way’s not-so-distant cousin, NGC 4945, has an active galactic nucleus, releasing far more energy than our own Milky Way galaxy of 100-400 billion stars. NGC 4945 is classed as a Seyfert galaxy. They harbour supermassive black holes at their centres which are surrounded by accretion disks of in-falling material. The black hole at the centre of NGC 4945 weighs in at around 1.6 million solar masses. Active galactic nuclei are the most luminous sources of electromagnetic radiation in the Universe, and their evolution puts constraints on cosmological models.

Seen edge-on here, the galactic disk is partly shrouded by obscuring dust bands that block the light from behind.

120 luminance frames at 30secs/frame (pixels binned at 1x1).
50 red filter frames at 30secs/frame (pixels binned at 2x2).
50 green filter frames at 30secs/frame (pixels binned at 2x2).
50 blue filter frames at 30secs/frame (pixels binned at 2x2).

Integration time: 2 hours 15 minutes. Gain 200, CCD chip temperature -20 Celcius.

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NGC 4945 in Centaurus, Bruce Rohrlach