NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions (Ian Parr)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Centaurus (Cen) · Contains: NGC 4945 · NGC 4976 · The star ξ1Cen · The star ξ2Cen

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions, Ian Parr

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions

Powered byPixInsight

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions

NGC 4945 is a barred spiral galaxy 11.7 Million light Years away in the constellation Centaurus, visible near the star Xi Centauri and has an unusual energetic Seyfert 2 nucleus that might house a supermassive black hole. It is the second brightest galaxy in the subgroup centered on Centaurus A.

The first night I imaged this the seeing was rubbish (HFR>5)and the following night I imaged it again and seeing was fantastic (HFR<1.5).

The bright blue stars reveal a reflection issue with the extra objective in my 127is Petzval refractor, and as far as I know it is unique to that model as my TV85 does not have it nor any other refractor I have tested.

The problem was finally acknowledged by Televue after a long, long time (4 years). They were working on the fixing the coatings and removed all reference to the quality of their anti-reflective coatings on their web-site. When Al Nagler found out he was furious and ordered them to upgrade all the objectives in my scope (it had sat at Televue for over 9 months in total being 'tested') with the very top of the line lenses from their current inventory and the difference was noticeable! Much sharper than the original lenses. It is a really, really good refractor but sadly the reflection issues remains if there is anything bright (over 5th Magnitude @ 5 minutes will create a fake galaxy offset somewhere in the field). I image with refractors because I can get a lot more done without messing around with reflectors and collimation, vignetting, rotation and focus issues etc.

I tried dealing with it in Photoshop but life is too short :-).

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 success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4624939
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions

NGC 4945 The Tweezers Galaxy and Bright Blue Stellar Companions

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

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