NGC 253 comparison with HST image (Niall MacNeill)

NGC 253 comparison with HST image

A friend suggested it would be interesting to make a comparison of my recent NGC 253 image with that from the Hubble, which was acquired in 2008.

I cropped and rotated my image to match the segment of the galaxy visible in the HST image. A most interesting exercise.

The Hubble image certainly has higher resolution, the benefit of not looking through the atmosphere and having mirror diameter 6.8X times mine. My image of course, highlights the Hydrogen Alpha emissions in red. Interesting to see where these areas correspond. In the HST image they almost look yellowy green. The HST image is almost monochrome and it is interesting that the yellow core of the galaxy where older stars reside, does not come through. It was clearly there in my data however. I am not sure what filters were used for the HST image.

I find it amazing to see how the same features appear in both images.

The impact of the atmosphere on the foreground stars, i.e. bloating them is also quite apparent, notwithstanding the fact that I took steps during processing, with Morphological Transformation in PixInsight, to pull them in.

Notice that, especially in front of the core, there appear to be columns of darker dust material perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy. NGC 253 is well known for this.

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 failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4095398
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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