NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy) (George Simon)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Sculptor (Scl) · Contains: NGC 253 · Sculptor Filament · Silver Coin

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy), George Simon

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy)

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy)

Like the Helix Nebula, which I imaged for the first time about a month ago, NGC 253 occupies too southerly a location for me even to have considered going after it during the many years that I imaged from Long Island, NY. Even from my current location in upstate South Carolina, it never climbs more than 30 degrees above my southern horizon, and barely clears the south wall of my observatory. Nonetheless, I was able recently to acquire about two-hours worth of usable data on the Sculptor Galaxy. The seeing on that night was considerably sub-par for my location, and especially so at the low altitudes through which NGC 253 treks. However, this galaxy is so bright, large and chock-full of dusty detail, that I was able to pull out a fair amount of that detail, despite the fact that my camera was looking through a thick layer of turbulent atmosphere.

NGC 253 is the central galaxy of the Sculptor Galaxy Group, which is the closest galaxy group to our own Local Group. Located about 11 million light years away, NGC 253 is a starburst galaxy, undergoing a period of intense star formation. Evidence suggests that this period began about 200 million years ago, when a collision between NGC 253 and a dwarf galaxy perturbed the former's disk and triggered the intense star formation that we currently observe.

Cloudy Nights

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

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	6491450
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy)

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy)

NGC 253 (The Sculptor Galaxy)

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information