Ever since I cast an eye on this rarely imaged , incredible region through my 10" F5 ATM Dobsonian , the thought of imaging it was just as incredible for me. But here we are and I must say I'm pretty stoked with the outcome. I have eyeballed the NGC Galaxies and maybe a few of the PGC's but just WOW at what has been captured here in comparison!!. At last count 12 NGC galaxies and 367 PGC galaxies are in the field!! Mind blowing stuff......
Central in the field of view is NGC4696 which is a massive elliptical galaxy which has been imaged by the Hubble Telescope and called the cosmic question mark from the large dust lanes ( not seen in my image ) At it's core is a super massive black hole making it more interesting than most elliptical galaxy's it is said.
It is perhaps best to regard the Centaurus cluster as two separate clusters superimposed on each other as NGC4709 ( to the right of center) is another 60 million light years distant.
Also The Centaurus Supercluster is a long supercluster that stretches away from us. Behind it lays the Shapley Supercluster at an estimated 500 million light years .Possibly some of these PGC galaxies belong to either of the more distance galaxy clusters . I have not studied their reported recession velocities to ascertain. And then there is the Great Attractor situated somewhere further away which our Virgo Super Cluster is traveling towards
For a deeper explaination
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/superc/cen.htmlThanks to my early visual mentor, Ron Knight for showing me this region !!
Awe and wonder folks ...on steroids!!
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