Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Fornax (For)  ·  Contains:  NGC 1097

Image of the day 10/04/2019

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    NGC 1097 -  Wide Field Showing Optical Jets, Terry Robison
    NGC 1097 -  Wide Field Showing Optical Jets
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    NGC 1097 - Wide Field Showing Optical Jets

    Image of the day 10/04/2019

    Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
      NGC 1097 -  Wide Field Showing Optical Jets, Terry Robison
      NGC 1097 -  Wide Field Showing Optical Jets
      Powered byPixInsight

      NGC 1097 - Wide Field Showing Optical Jets

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      Description

      This is an attempt to reprocess a data set I collected in 2017. I do remember processing this galaxy was really tough with my first attempt. I could see many features that I wanted to reveal in the RAW data, but my choices in processing helped in some areas, but in other places, diabolical would be a good choice for a word. My previous attempt suffered from a splotchy background and I wanted to work on this a little. The galaxy had more in it, and I wanted to lift that a little, hopefully adding an element of depth. The optical jets were a little noisy as the signal is very weak. My attempts to reveal these may have contributed to the background levels not being ideal.

      Two years later, and a little more practice, I decided to have another go. This time, I have presented a wide field shot using the full-frame of my sensor. This presentation certainly has less impact but retaining the full-frame allows the many galaxies distributed throughout to be seen. So many of those smudges that are visible while zoomed in are galaxies. There are hundreds of them within this field. I love exploring and searching for galaxies in images. The main subject is 45 million years away, just imagine how far away some of the galaxies that are only pixels across are.

      NGC 1097 can be found in the constellation of Fornax, and is classified as a SBbc, barred spiral galaxy. It’s a fantastic galaxy to look at and is very dramatic. The distortions and tidal debris have been caused by the interaction with its companion galaxy NGC 1097A. A galactic train wreck. Personally, the most interesting thing would have to be the optical jets that are visible in deep exposures. Optical jets are very rare, and NGC 1097 has four. Only three are clearly visible in this image. The current theory is that the jets are actually the shattered remains of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy, and composed of stars, but without hydrogen gas. The gas may have been stripped away in the past during this interaction.

      Like all nice galaxies, it has a supermassive black hole at its centre. The mass has been calculated to be 140 million times the mass of our sun

      Object Details

      NGC 1097, Arp 77

      Constellation: Fornax, Galaxy type: SBbc (barred spiral)

      Size: 9.3’ x 6.2’

      Recession Velocity: 1,284 km/sec

      Instruments:

      10 Inch RCOS fl 9.1

      Astro Physics AP-900 Mount

      SBIG STL 11000m

      FLI Filter Wheel

      Astrodon Lum, Red, Green, Blue Filters

      Baader Planetarium H-alpha 7nm Narrowband-Filter

      Exposure Details:

      36 X 900 Bin 1X1 Lum

      12 X 450 Bin 2X2 Red

      12 X 450 Bin 2X2 Green

      12 X 450 Bin 2X2 Blue

      19 X 1200 Bin 1X1 Ha

      Pixel scale: 0.8

      Location

      Australia, Central Victoria

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      NGC 1097 -  Wide Field Showing Optical Jets, Terry Robison