NGC 247 & Burbidge's Chain (Gary Imm)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Cetus (Cet) · Contains: NGC 247 · PGC 170002 · PGC 172805 · PGC 172816 · PGC 2683 · PGC 2791 · PGC 2794 · PGC 2795 · PGC 2796 · PGC 2798 · PGC 2902 · PGC 2904 · PGC 3080228 · PGC 3094309 · PGC 830067 · PGC 830608 · PGC 830933 · PGC 831066 · PGC 831681 · PGC 832996 · PGC 833517 · PGC 833534 · PGC 833600 · PGC 833650 · PGC 833795 · PGC 833970 · PGC 834518 · PGC 834535 · PGC 834562 · PGC 834737 · And 34 more.

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NGC 247 & Burbidge's Chain

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NGC 247 & Burbidge's Chain

This object is a spiral galaxy located only 11 million light years away in the southern constellation of Cetus at a declination of -21 degrees. This galaxy spans a whopping 30 arc-minutes in our apparent view, equal to that of our full moon in the sky. I believe that it is the largest non-Messier galaxy in the sky in apparent size. It has an actual diameter of 60,000 light years.

Because the galaxy is one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way, many details in the galaxy can be seen in the full resolution view. I especially like the blue star clusters, which are especially prevalent in the northern part of the disk (towards the top of the image).

The most interesting feature of this galaxy is the apparent huge void in the galaxy towards the top of the image. I don't believe it is actually a void - I think it is the inside area of the northern spiral arm as it wraps around the galaxy. The galaxy is likely warped, since the same effect is not visible in the southern spiral arm. By my calculation, we are looking at this galaxy at about 10 degrees from edge-on, which makes it difficult to see and understand the galaxy structure from our visual perspective.

There are many background galaxies visible in this image. I especially like the chain of 5 galaxies, called Burbidge's Chain, just above and slightly left of NGC 247. This chain is named after Dr. Geoffrey Burbidge, who discovered them in 1963.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4038340
PixInsight job	IWFWAE2HHEUV6X41DK65MATUS1KQEQ3J
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	00h47m07s.744
RA (top/left)	00h50m33s.887
RA (top/right)	00h43m53s.700
RA (bottom/right)	00h43m40s.227
RA (bottom/left)	00h50m23s.852

Dec (center)	-20°45′56″.69
Dec (top/left)	-20°16′27″.56
Dec (top/right)	-20°12′30″.90
Dec (bottom/right)	-21°15′09″.98
Dec (bottom/left)	-21°19′09″.42

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NGC 247 & Burbidge's Chain

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