Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Centaurus (Cen)  ·  Contains:  Centaurus A  ·  HD116466  ·  HD116647  ·  NGC 5128
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Centaurus A in LRGB -  a Peculiar Starburst Galaxy, George  Yendrey
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Centaurus A in LRGB - a Peculiar Starburst Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Centaurus A in LRGB -  a Peculiar Starburst Galaxy, George  Yendrey
Powered byPixInsight

Centaurus A in LRGB - a Peculiar Starburst Galaxy

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Description

I'm still waiting for a clear sky here, but PixInsight dropped an update with a new gradient correction process/tool, so I grabbed this dataset from Telescope Live to give it a quick test run.

Which is not to say that Centaurus A is an afterthought but let me cover the process of this LRGB image first.

The new gradient correction tool is called just that in the Process dropdown - Gradient Correction.  It is entirely algorithm based, developed as part of the ongoing PixInsight MARS project (Multiscale All Sky Reference Survey).  Gradient Correction is built/designed to give good results for the majority of objects using the default settings.  The PixInsight team has already posted some short tutorial videos on their YouTube channel and I'm sure there will be more in depth coverage from providers like Adam Block.

I did use Background Neutralization before applying Gradient Correction, and I also tested the results against GraXpert, which has been my default gradient correction tool for the last few months.

I did try Gradient Correction (GC) with both the default settings and tweaking on some of the number of customization sliders that are available.  Overall, my results/impressions are that the default results are very good with only very minor differences noted vs. GraXpert.  My 'tweaking' of the sliders didn't improve anything significantly enough to justify not using the defaults.

After applying Gradient Correction, I processed with my 'normal' workflow, SPCC, the BlurXterminator, StarXterminator (Batch mode), Stretch/saturate the Stars only image, create a mask from the Lum image, then focus on the RGB image after stretching.

Centaurus A didn't need nor offer much opportunity for much in the way additional tweaking.  After stretching, I tweaked with Curves, then use HDR (with hue preservation) on the Lightness mask.  This brings out a lot of the detail in the dark banding that is the singular feature of this galaxy in visible light.  NoiseXterminator, then a very very light application of Unshparpmask, just barely enough to provide a bit of improved sharpness around the small detail in the galaxy.  Unsharpmask is a tool that create signficant artifacts in an image if applied to aggresively and for most objects its defaults are too aggressive (IMO).

This image is going to look a bit bland compared to images that include Chandra X-ray data.  That is because its most outstanding features are only visible in X-Ray.  Centaurus as a very large supermassive black hole at its center which is generating two opposing relativistic jets outward from the galaxy, perpendicular to its rotation plane. The jets and additonal clouds from them as well as some additional structures at the jet's terminus can be seen in submilleter data in the 870 micron range.  Fragments of the 'upper jet' (in this image orientation can be seen faintly well above the galactic plane and to the left of the galactic centerline.  It requires some fairly significant zoom in (which is available in Astrobin) to make those features visible.  The opposing "lower" jet is not visible in this image.

From Wikipedia:
Centaurus A (also known as NGC 5128 or Caldwell 77) is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type (lenticular galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy) and distance (11–13 million light-years).  NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth-brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target.  It is only visible from the southern hemisphere and low northern latitudes.

The center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a mass of 55 million solar masses, which ejects a relativistic jet that is responsible for emissions in the X-ray and radio wavelengths. By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about half of the speed of light. X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases, resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles. The X-ray jets of Centaurus A are thousands of light-years long, while the radio jets are over a million light-years long.

As in other starburst galaxies, a galactic collision is suspected to be responsible for an intense burst of star formation. Models have suggested that Centaurus A was a large elliptical galaxy that collided with a smaller spiral galaxy, with which it will eventually merge.  For that reason, the galaxy has been of particular interest to astronomers for years. While collisions of spiral galaxies are relatively common, the effects of a collision between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy are not fully understood.

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Centaurus A in LRGB -  a Peculiar Starburst Galaxy, George  Yendrey