NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy (NocturnalAstro)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sculptor (Scl) · Contains: IC 1537 · NGC 55

NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy, NocturnalAstro

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NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy

Link: https://www.nocturnalastro.com/images/galaxies/ngc55

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

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NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy

Link: https://www.nocturnalastro.com/images/galaxies/ngc55

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

At a distance of 6 million light years from us lies this spectacular galaxy, NGC 55 also known as The String of Pearls Galaxy. It resides in a relatively nearby gathering of galaxies, the Sculptor Group, which is located about 6 million light years from us.

This image captures huge filaments, loops and "bubbles" of ionized hydrogen gas thousands of light years across. These structures probably result from material blown outward by many generations of massive stars in galaxy. NGC 55 is an irregular galaxy that has hints of spiral structure; it is similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion to the Milky Way that is visible in the southern sky.

Astronomers theorize that the tangled protrusions from NGC 55 resulted from disruptions caused by a class of hot, rapidly evolving stars within the galaxy. These stars, which have at least ten times the mass of the sun, shine brilliantly and eject material in powerful stellar winds. When such massive stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, they undergo cataclysmic detonations--supernova explosions--which blast away the star's outer layers. The combination of stellar winds and supernova explosions sculpts the interstellar hydrogen gas into the bubbles and filaments seen in this image.

An additional feature I was able to capture in this image is the large center halo. It is highly active in star forming regions and dust lanes. How stars form in the galactic halo, away from traditional regions of star formation remains an enigma. Different scenarios have been proposed including ejection of stars or clusters from the disk as a consequence of supernovae or gravitational encounters.

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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.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3763343
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy

NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy

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NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy

NGC 55 - String of Pearls Galaxy

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