NGC 1097 in Fornax (Bruce Rohrlach)

NGC 1097 in Fornax

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

The prominent blue knots in the outermost spiral arms of NGC 1097 (45 million light years away in Fornax) are vast reservoirs of hydrogen gas within which new stars are condensing. These blue-hued knots in the outer spiral arms are similar to the Orion, Carina, Rosette, Eagle, Lagoon, Pelican, Prawn, and others that stud our own galaxy the Milky Way, and especially the Tarantula nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion/satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. The blue colour of these knots in this true colour image reflects the young hot blue supergiant stars that are peppered through the core of these gas clouds in the outer spiral arms. The gargantuan blue-coloured Tarantula nebula in our own Milky Way galaxy is thus a similar beast that births myriads of young, blue, hot supergiant stars that illuminate it from within.

As we move inward towards the inner central bar, the stars are on average older and more yellow-hued. The bright white core to the galaxy is due to vast amounts of inward-spiralling matter and gas that is being heated in the vicinity of the supermassive black hole that lies at the core of NGC 1097, and is spawning intense concentrations of hot white stars around the galactic nucleus. NGC 1097, discovered by William Herschel on 9 October 1790 (Caldwell Object 67) wraps its spiral arms around a small companion elliptical galaxy (NGC 1097A) with which it is strongly interacting with, a dance that has been being played out on a cosmic time scale of billions of years.

Imaged from Melbourne – 28 and 29 October (Skywatcher 8 inch f5, ZWO ASI1600mm Pro cooled).

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3528336
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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NGC 1097 in Fornax

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