NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light (Gary JONES)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Centaurus (Cen) · Contains: Centaurus A · HD116466 · HD116647 · NGC 5128

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NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light

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NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light

I was very pleased with this image of Centaurus A.

This 'peculiar' galaxy was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia, not far from where this image was captured.

This image is 'first light' for the Askar 80PHQ. This little telescope performed very well, with crisp, round stars from corner to corner.

The subs were slightly under-sampled, because the camera's pixel size is 4.8𝜇m, somewhat larger than the 2.8𝜇m ideal for this telescope.

This is the second image I've processed using PixInsight. I used Drizzle to recover some of the fine detail lost by under-sampling, which worked extremely well. I also used BlurX to tighten up the stars, and NoiseX to reduce noise, particularly in the dust lanes surrounding the core.

I was fascinated to learn that Centaurus A is the fifth-brightest galaxy in the night sky, and has at its core a supermassive black hole of 55 million solar masses. This ejects a relativistic jet, the inner parts of which travel at half of the speed of light.

Centaurus A is known as a 'starburst' galaxy, because it supports an exceptionally high rate of star formation. This is thought to be the result of a galactic collision - research suggests that Centaurus A was once a large elliptical galaxy that collided with a smaller spiral galaxy. Centaurus A is 60,000 light years across, and about 12 million light years from Earth.

I plan to capture more subs for this target, and will revise it then to soften the stars and restore their colour.

Fine Art Astrophotography
Australian Astrophotographers
Mac Users Group

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7879719
PixInsight job	QIEYB1QPFXVO5E3SDN2BJ05MUSHX6ID2
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	13h25m27s.531
RA (top/left)	13h24m27s.658
RA (top/right)	13h24m05s.477
RA (bottom/right)	13h26m28s.240
RA (bottom/left)	13h26m48s.768

Dec (center)	-43°00′52″.73
Dec (top/left)	-42°40′02″.79
Dec (top/right)	-43°19′04″.23
Dec (bottom/right)	-43°21′41″.54
Dec (bottom/left)	-42°42′37″.66

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NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light

NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light

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NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light

NGC 5128 = Centaurus A - 80PHQ First Light

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