NGC253
Sculptor Galaxy
Imager: Greg Santos

Imaged Date:	10/17/2009
Object Information:	Another discovery of Caroline Herschel, NGC253 is the protypical Sc galaxy. Galaxies of this type have their mass well-distributed among stars, emission nebulae, and dust, and are often called "starburst" galaxies, due to the high rate of stellar formation. At a distance of around 3.5 Mpc, NGC253's morphology and its inclination to our line of sight makes the tracing of its spiral arms at optical wavelengths difficult; however, it shows up clearly as a barred spiral in infrared images. The HST took some fabulous close-ups of this galaxy in 1995 and 1998. The apparent angular size is about 27' x 6', seen in context in this image. The integrated apparent visual magnitude is about 8.0.
Imaged at:	Tierra Del Sol, CA
Equipment:	Optics - Pentax 75mm APO Mount - Takahashi EM-200 Camera - QSI 583ws
Exposure Information:	10 x 10 minutes
Camera Control Software:	CCDSoft, TheSky 6, MetaGuide
Image Processing Software:	AIP4Win, GIMP

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Greg Santos

Peter, thanks for the kind comments. This image was composed of 10 10-minutes exposures, for a total of 100 minutes, through an Astronomik luminance filter. We were so lucky to have really good seeing in the south at TDS that night. The QSI 583ws is a fantastic camera for an astro-imaging newbie like me!

10/25/2009

Peter Morrison

Nicely captured and processed. What were your exposures? I am very envious of your camera.

Peter

10/25/2009