Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)  ·  Contains:  NGC 2903
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NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy, niteman1946
NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy
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NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy, niteman1946
NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy

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Description

NGC 2903 is an isolated barred spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation of Leo, positioned about 1.5° due south of Lambda Leonis. 
It was discovered by German-born astronomer William Herschel, who cataloged it on November 16, 1784. He mistook it as a double nebula, as did subsequent observers, and it wasn't until the nineteenth century that the Third Earl of Rosse resolved into a spiral form. 
J. L. E. Dreyer assigned it the identifier 2903 in his New General Catalogue.  This field galaxy is located about 30 million light-years away from the Milky Way, and is a member of the Virgo Super-cluster. Its morphological classification indicates a barred spiral (SB) with moderate to tightly-wound spiral arms (bc). 
De Vaucouleurs and associates assigned it the class SAB(rs)bc, suggesting a weaker bar structure (SAB) with a partial ring (rs). The bar structure appears stronger in the near infrared band.
The galaxy as a whole is inclined by an angle of 60° to the line of sight from the Earth.
The central ~650 pc radius volume of the core is a strong starburst region. The star formation rate here is 0.7 M☉ y−1 and it is being fed by gas inflow along the bar. There is no evidence of an active nucleus.The irregular dwarf galaxy KKH 51 appears to be a companion, as they have an angular separation of 25 and nearly the same radial velocity.  [Source:  Wikipedia].

Capture Information:
The image was captured with the iOptron CEM120 mount, the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT OTA, and my QHYCCD QHY294m Pro mono CMOS camera at F7.16 (2182mm FL). 
Astronomik's Ha narrow band, and Luminance, Red, Green and Blue broad band filters were used.

Image Information -- 2023
LUM :  80 subs (6.67hr) on Apr 13th, 15th and 16th.
RED :  16 subs (1.33hr) on Apr 13th and 15th.
GRN :  16 subs (1.33hr) on Apr 13th and 15th.
BLU :   16 subs (1.33hr) on Apr 13th and 15th.
Ha :       8 subs  (0.67hr) on Apr 15th.
All exposures were at 5 minutes (300s) each, 1600 gain, 56 offset, 1x1 bin and -10C.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th from several years back.
Luminance was generated using only subs from the LUM filter.  R, G and B were collected for the color mix.
I used the technique presented on Harry's Astroshed site for adding the Halpha (Ha) images to the red images. You can see in the finished product where the isolated Hydrogen Alpha features are prominent in red.

The central area striations (lines) along the galaxy’s long axis are real. I’ve not seen, however, any explanation for them. 
North is to the right (pretty sure), and this is a medium crop due to the FOV’s “width” being slightly greater than the filter’s reach. 

Comments:
This is the 2nd time I’ve run at this target.  
The first was in March of 2015 with my Meade 12”LX200 fork mount, using the Atik 383L+mono CCD camera.
This time we’re on the iOptron CEM120 mount, using the QHY294 pro mono cmos camera. 
I would like to think this effort came out better than the one at 2015.

ONE LAST THING:
Nothing new from iOptron regarding the mount’s unacceptable RA excursion issue.  
So, a couple of postings ago featured the M82 galaxy (which is fairly close to the pole).  I noted at the time that the iOptron CEM120 RA drive behavior had improved, although not returned to its glory days. 
Then the following target (NGC2175) was much further south (more overhead when it passes).  And not surprisingly, the RA drive was more active, although the final product somewhat belied that.  And now we have NGC2903 whose location is similar to that of NGC2175 (i.e. more overhead).  The data shows the mount did not perform as well as the previous NGC2175.  But again, the final product showed scant evidence of elongated stars.

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NGC2903 Face On Spiral Galaxy, niteman1946