NGC 1399 & NGC 1404 (Gary Imm)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Fornax (For) · Contains: NGC 1399 · NGC 1404

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 1399 & NGC 1404

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 1399 & NGC 1404

This image captures a pair of galaxies 8 arc-minutes apart, both located 55 million light years away in the southern constellation of Fornax at a declination of -35 degrees. They belong to the Fornax Cluster. It is puzzling to me why these galaxies appear to be so close to each other but show no signs of interaction that I can see.

The left galaxy is NGC 1399, an 8.8 magnitude elliptical galaxy with a surface brightness of 13. It spans 8 arc-minutes, which corresponds to a diameter of 130,000 light years. This is the dominant galaxy in the Fornax cluster. Note the numerous background galaxies seen through the galaxy halo in the full resolution view.

The right galaxy is NGC 1404, an 9.7 magnitude elliptical galaxy with an identical surface brightness. It spans 5 arc-minutes, which corresponds to a diameter of 80,000 light years. This image is a good one to see the relationship between two objects of the same surface brightness but differet magnitude (because of the difference in area).

As I have said before, ellipticals are my least favorite sky objects to process because of their poor definition and contrast. But I enjoy their beauty, scale and brightness, and I appreciate that they are the most common type of galaxy in the universe.

When processing this image, I cropped it larger than usual to capture the irregular blue galaxy (ESO 358-49) in the lower right corner, which I find 10x more interesting than the ellipticals.

Takahashi Refractors
ZWO ASI183/QHY183
The refractors!
Cloudy Nights

Elliptical Galaxies
Hidden Treasures Catalog (Complete*)

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	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3139258
PixInsight job	PVPRM6S1QAWLH9WIEYPQ0T814MN2C65N
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	03h38m41s.609
RA (top/left)	03h37m01s.775
RA (top/right)	03h38m16s.358
RA (bottom/right)	03h40m21s.771
RA (bottom/left)	03h39m06s.636

Dec (center)	-35°31′45″.65
Dec (top/left)	-35°23′48″.53
Dec (top/right)	-35°53′00″.52
Dec (bottom/right)	-35°39′37″.68
Dec (bottom/left)	-35°10′30″.62

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 1399 & NGC 1404

NGC 1399 & NGC 1404

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 1399 & NGC 1404

NGC 1399 & NGC 1404

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

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