NGC 300 (also known as Caldwell 70) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. It is one of the closest galaxies to the Local Group, and probably lies between the latter and the Sculptor Group. It is the brightest of the five main spirals in the direction of the Sculptor Group. It shares many characteristics of the Triangulum Galaxy that can be seen here:

https://www.hansonastronomy.com/m33

It is 94,000 light-years in diameter, somewhat smaller than the Milky Way.

Taken with PlaneWave 24” CDK at SWOS in Chile.

Face-on spiral galaxy M77 lies a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatic constellation Cetus. Also known as NGC 1068, its very bright core is well studied by astronomers exploring the mysteries of super massive black holes in active galaxies. While M77 is also seen at x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, and radio wavelengths, this visible light image highlights another remarkable aspect of the galaxy. In the picture it shows outer faint details, following spiral arms and structures that reach far beyond the galaxy's brighter central regions. Including the fainter outskirts, the galaxy's diameter is well over 100 thousand light-years at M77's estimated distance, making it larger than our own spiral Milky Way.

Messier 61 (also known as NGC 4303) is a very bright barred spiral galaxy of some 100,000 light-years across, located only about 52.5 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo (the Virgin), while it is receding from us at about 1566 kilometers per second.

This grand design galaxy spiral (a spiral galaxy with prominent and well-defined spiral arms that extend clearly around the galaxy) is one of the largest members of the Virgo Cluster, a cluster of approximately 1300 (and possibly up to 2000) galaxies held together by gravity. This cluster forms the central region of the Virgo Supercluster (or Local Supercluster), an even bigger gathering of galaxies.

Messier 61 is classified as a starburst galaxy and has an Active Galactic Nucleus. The energy source of an Active Galactic Nucleus is believed to originate in mass accretion by a supermassive black hole within the nucleus of the galaxy. Messier 61 probably has a supermassive black hole with a mass around 5 million times that of our Sun on its center.

In this image, its spiral arms can be seen in stunning detail, swirling inwards to the very center of the galaxy, where they form a smaller, intensely bright spiral. In the outer regions, these vast arms are sprinkled with bright blue regions where new stars are being formed from hot, dense clouds of gas. The high star formation across Messier 61’s disk is perhaps due to interactions with her satellite galaxies NGC 4292 and NGC 4303B.

The intensely bright spiral is a nuclear starburst ring some 730 light years from the nucleus, formed by several massive star-forming regions which contain massive hot stars with an age range between 5 and 25 million years old. The starburst ring may be associated with a second bar much smaller than the main one of this galaxy.

NGC 488 is a spiral galaxy seen face on 90 million light years away in Pisces.
The galaxy has a large central bulge and tightly wound spiral arms in a near perfect structure. The arms contain multiple star forming regions.

This was a total supersize look at all that detail and extended dust.

Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Enjoy,
Mark & Mike

NGC 7217 is a gas-poor system[2] whose main features are the presence of several rings of stars concentric to its nucleus: three main ones –the outermost one being of the most prominent and the one that features most of the gas and star formation of this galaxy –[2] plus several others inside the innermost one discovered with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope; a feature that suggests NGC 7217's central regions have suffered several starbursts.[3] There is also a very large and massive spheroid that extends beyond its disk.[4]

Other noteworthy features this galaxy has are the presence of a number of stars rotating in the opposite direction around the galaxy's center to most of them[5] and two distinct stellar populations: one of intermediate age on its innermost regions and a younger, metal-poor version on its outermost ones.[6]

It has been suggested these features were caused by a merger with another galaxy[7] and, in fact, computer simulations show that NGC 7217 could have been a large lenticular galaxy that merged with one or two smaller gas-rich ones of late Hubble type becoming the spiral galaxy we see today.;[6] however right now this galaxy is isolated in space, with no nearby major companions.[6] More recent research, however, presents a somewhat different scenario in which NGC 7217's massive bulge and halo would have been formed in a merger and the disk formed later (and is still growing) either accreting gas from the intergalactic medium or smaller gas-rich galaxies, or most likely from a previously existing reserve.[8]

"NGC 4365 is an elliptical galaxy that anchors a small group of galaxies. A remarkable aspect of this giant elliptical galaxy that can't be discerned optically is its counter-rotating core, which rotates in the opposite direction to the rest of the galaxy. It has a distance of 75 million light years and measurements of its recessional velocity show it to lie about 20 million light years behind the Virgo Cluster.

Although difficult to see is a faint tidal tail that is the product of an interaction with the galaxy NGC 4342. It is likely to be composed of stars and globular clusters that have been tidally stripped from NGC 4342.

Another interesting galaxy is NGC 4370, which is located above and to the left of NGC 4365. Once considered rare, it is part of a class of galaxy known as dust lane ellipticals."

Messier 81, NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy)

Taken from DGRO and SWO at Dark Sky New Mexico
24”CDK, 17”CDK and 14.5" RCOS

Luminance 1100, Red 240, Green 240, Blue 240

One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful M81. The grand spiral galaxy can be found toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major). This superbly detailed image reveals M81's bright yellow nucleus, blue spiral arms, tell tale pinkish star forming regions, and sweeping cosmic dust lanes with a scale comparable to the Milky Way. Hinting at a disorderly past, a remarkable dust lane actually runs straight through the disk, to the left of the galactic center, contrary to M81's other prominent spiral features. The errant dust lane may be the lingering result of a close encounter between between M81 and its smaller companion galaxy, M82. Scrutiny of variable stars in M81 has yielded one of the best determined distances for an external galaxy -- 11.8 million light-years. M81's dwarf companion galaxy Holmberg IX can be seen just above the large spiral.

Explanation APOD: NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot. Over 40 million light-years away and swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, NGC 660's peculiar appearance marks it as a polar ring galaxy. A rare galaxy type, polar ring galaxies have a substantial population of stars, gas, and dust orbiting in rings strongly tilted from the plane of the galactic disk. The bizarre-looking configuration could have been caused by the chance capture of material from a passing galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris eventually strung out in a rotating ring. The violent gravitational interaction would account for the myriad pinkish star forming regions scattered along NGC 660's ring. The polar ring component can also be used to explore the shape of the galaxy's otherwise unseen dark matter halo by calculating the dark matter's gravitational influence on the rotation of the ring and disk. Broader than the disk, NGC 660's ring spans over 50,000 light-years.

NGC 3981 is about 65 million light years from Earth, but even at that great distance it is considered a neighbour of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The large stars in the image’s foreground are stars in the Milky Way. Because NGC 3981 is inclined towards Earth, astronomers are able to look right into the center of the galaxy. The bright center of the galaxy is dominated by a super-massive black hole (SMBH). The image shows the vast and delicate-looking spiral arms of the galaxy, which are star-forming regions full of dust. The disc itself is lit up with a host of hot young stars. Some of the spiral arm appears stretched out and misshapen, possibly due to an encounter with another galaxy at some time in the distant past.

NGC 3169 “The Scorpion Galaxy”

Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 appears to be ready for the strike. Well, only with a bit of imagination.

Spiral galaxy NGC 3169 appears to be unraveling in this cosmic scene, played out some 70 million light-years away just below bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation Sextans.

Its beautiful spiral arms are distorted into sweeping tidal tails as NGC 3169 (left) and neighboring NGC 3166 (right) exhibits distortion in its dust lanes as they interact gravitationally, eventually probably tearing each other apart. This is often the case for proximate galaxies in the local universe. In fact, drawn out stellar arcs and plumes, indications of gravitational interactions, seem rampant in the deep and colorful galaxy group photo. Smaller, dimmer NGC 3165 at bottom right.

NGC 3169 is also known to shine across the spectrum from radio to X-rays, harboring an active galactic nucleus that is likely the site of a supermassive black hole.

Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 and CDK700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

NGC 3628 “Culvers in the sky”

NGC 3628 is classed as an unbarred spiral galaxy 35 million light years away in Leo. It’s often referred to as the hamburger galaxy. I have to say if I’m going to eat a burger from fast food place it will be Culvers! And this one looks delicious, must be a bacon butter deluxe.

It’s also one of the galaxies in the Leo triplet and has a tidal tail that stretches 300,000 light years seen in a nice detail in this image. While classified as unbarred, there is some speculation that it is a barred galaxy due to the X shaped bulge in the central portion. Bar formation is often triggered by interaction with other galaxies, and 3628 is interacting with the other two galaxies in the triplet.

The galaxy features numerous dust lanes and several obvious regions of active star formation. There are many distant background galaxies throughout the image.

Image Processing and Calibration: Mark Hanson
Data: Martin Pugh

Enjoy,

Mark

NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy or Sarah's Galaxy, is an unbarred spiral galaxy about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It has an approximately 300,000 light-years long tidal tail. Along with M65 and M66, NGC 3628 forms the Leo Triplet, a small group of galaxies. Its most conspicuous feature is the broad and obscuring band of dust located along the outer edge of its spiral arms, effectively transecting the galaxy to the view from Earth.

Amateur small equipment has demonstrated to be competitive tools to obtain ultra-deep imaging of the outskirts of nearby massive galaxies and to survey vast areas of the sky with unprecedented depth. Over the last decade, amateur data have revealed, in many cases for the first time, an assortment of large-scale tidal structures around nearby massive galaxies and have detected hitherto unknown low surface brightness systems in the local Universe that weren’t detected so far by means of resolved stellar populations or Hi surveys.

Arp 271 The Tender Dance
Located about 130 million light-years away, the Arp 271 pair is about 130,000 light-years across. It was originally discovered in 1785 by William Herschel. It is speculated that the Milky Way will undergo a similar collision in about five billion years with the neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy, which is currently located about 2.6 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.
Arp 271 comprises galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427, two similar spiral galaxies that glide past each other in a cosmic dance that is choreographed by gravity. It is uncertain whether the galaxies will eventually collide.
They will continue to interact for tens of millions of years, creating new stars due to the mutual gravitational attraction between the galaxies, seen here are obvious signs of interaction by the bridge of stars already connecting the two.
Our own Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision in the far future with the Andromeda galaxy, which is now located about 2.6 million light years away from the Milky Way.
Taken from El Sauce Chile CDK 24” and Moravian C3 camera.
Lum Red Green Blue Ha
32of32 x 15mins 22of22 x 15mins 21of21 x 15mins 21of21 x 15mins 10of15 x 20mins

Image Processing and Calibration: Mark Hanson
Data Capture: Martin Pugh
Enjoy, Mark

At the Core of Chaos”
NGC 4038 and 4039 are a pair of interacting galaxies located 75 million light years from here in Corvus. They are often referred to as The Antennae Galaxies. The signature antennae consist of luminous matter formed by gravitational tidal forces between the two galaxies. The result of strong interaction has also been to trigger areas of very active star formation.

This image is one of the highest resolution images of it from earth by amateur astronomers. The core of this Galaxy is a must see in full resolution.

Core Image here:

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 5078-5101

Explanation Via APOD: This sharp telescopic field of view holds two bright galaxies. Barred spiral NGC 5101 (middle left) and nearly edge-on system NGC 5078 (middle right) are separated on the sky by about 0.5 degrees or about the apparent width of a full moon. Found within the boundaries of the serpentine constellation Hydra, both are estimated to be around 90 million light-years away and similar in size to our own large Milky Way galaxy. In fact, if they both lie at the same distance their projected separation would be only 800,000 light-years or so. That's easily less than half the distance between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. NGC 5078 is interacting with a smaller companion galaxy, cataloged as IC 879, seen just right of the larger galaxy's bright core. Even more distant background galaxies are scattered around the colorful field. Some are even visible right through the face-on disk of NGC 5101. But the prominent spiky stars are in the foreground, well within our own Milky Way.

NGC 2090 in Columba

NGC 2090 is an infrequently imaged spiral galaxy located 40 million light years away in Columba. The structure of NGC 2090 is an SC type of spiral, the arms are quite faint and required considerable integration time to properly resolve. NGC 2090 was one of 18 galaxies that were part of the HST Extragalactic Distance Scale Key Project to better define the value of the Hubble constant. The sparse nature of the galaxy’s arms allowed The Hubble Space Telescope to resolve stars leading to a more accurate red shift calculation.

Imaged in LRGB at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile on our CDK 1000 telescope.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 1291, also known as NGC 1269, is a ring galaxy with an unusual inner bar and outer ring structure located about 33 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. It was discovered by James Dunlop in 1826 and subsequently entered into the New General Catalogue as NGC 1291 by Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer. John Herschel then observed the same object in 1836 and entered it into the catalog as NGC 1269 without realizing that it was a duplicate. This galaxy was cited as an example of a "transitional galaxy" by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer team in 2007.The galaxy NGC 1291 is about 12 billion years old—and that’s old.

About 70 million light-years distant, gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 289 is larger than our own Milky Way. Seen nearly face-on, its bright core and colorful central disk give way to remarkably faint, bluish spiral arms. The extensive arms sweep well over 100 thousand light-years from the galaxy's center. At the top left in this sharp, telescopic galaxy portrait the main spiral arm seems to encounter a small, fuzzy elliptical companion galaxy interacting with enormous NGC 289. Of course the spiky stars are in the foreground of the scene. They lie within the Milky Way toward the southern constellation Sculptor.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300

Messier 83 "The Colorful Cosmos Series Begins"


M 83 Located some 15 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Serpent) is one of the highlights of the Southern sky, often referred to as the Southern Pinwheel.

It’s one of the largest and closest barred spirals galaxies to us.

It has hosted many supernova explosions. At least six (likely 7)of these were observed supernovae and nearly 300 supernovae remnants.
Its center is mysterious and unusual; the supermassive black hole at its heart is not alone. This striking galaxy displays a phenomenon known as a double nucleus.
The double Nucleus does not mean it has 2 black holes but rather a single supermassive black hole with a large lopsided disk of stars orbiting which makes it look like dual nucleus.
M 83 has a "bar" of stars slicing through its center, leading to its classification as a barred spiral. Our own Milky Way also belongs to this category as well.
These bars are thought to act a bit like a Chanel, funneling gas inwards towards the galaxy's core. This gas is then used to form new stars that feed the galaxy's black hole.
Here we see the Hydrogen channel only Where the detail Is quite different from the color channels. This was continuum subtracted from the red channel to give a much more realistic view.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our PlaneWave CDK 24 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Enjoy,

Mark

Messier 83
One of the highlights of the Southern sky, M83 is often referred to as the Southern Pinwheel.

It is a colorful barred spiral starburst galaxy located only 15 million light years away in Hydra.
M83 has an unusual double nucleus and houses a super massive black hole at its center apparently surrounded by an asymmetric disc of stars. It has also been the home of at least six observed supernovae and nearly 300 supernovae remnants have been identified.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Enjoy,

Mark & Mike

NGC 55, also occasionally referred to as The Whale Galaxy and Caldwell 72, is a barred irregular spiral galaxy located about five million light years away in the constellation Sculptor. Along with its neighbor NGC 300, it is one of the closest galaxies to the Local Group, probably lying between the Milky Way and the Sculptor Group. It is likely that NGC 55 and its neighbor NGC 300 orbit each other and form a gravitationally bound pair.

Along with NGC 300, NGC 55 is part of the Local Group of Galaxies that also includes the Andromeda galaxy (M31), the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and 40 other galaxies.

NGC 55 is nearly edge-on and appears asymmetrical, like a cigar. Its bulge is diffuse, broad, and somewhat elongated. The bright core is crossed with clouds of gas and dust, and it has a lot of pinkish active star forming regions, and young blue star clusters. Among all these stars are over a hundred Cepheid Variables.

NGC 55 is thought to be like our galactic neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), although the LMC is seen face-on, whilst NGC 55 is edge-on.

Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile

24” PlaneWave CDK (LRGBHA)

NGC 1313
Who says Galaxies can’t have babies!
This Galaxy looks like a baby in the fetal position.
Why is this galaxy so discombobulated? Usually, galaxies this Topsy-turvy result from a recent collision with a neighboring galaxy. Spiral galaxy NGC 1313, however, appears to be alone. Brightly lit with massive new blue stars, star formation appears so rampant in NGC 1313 that it has been labeled a starburst galaxy.
Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, individual stars of barred spiral galaxy NGC 1313 are easily resolved.
Strange features of NGC 1313 include that its spiral arms are lopsided, and its rotational axis is not at the center of the nuclear bar. Pictured below, NGC 1313 spans about 50,000 light years and lies only about 15 million light years away toward the constellation of the Reticle (Reticulum).



Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile

24” PlaneWave CDK (LRGBHA)

NGC 247 – Needle’s Eye Galaxy

Explanation from APOD: About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy smaller than our Milky Way. Measured to be only 11 million light-years distant it is nearby though. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our perspective, it dominates this telescopic field of view toward the southern constellation Cetus. The pronounced dark void on the bottom side of the galaxy's disk recalls for some its popular name, the Needle's Eye galaxy. Many background galaxies are visible in this sharp galaxy portrait, including the remarkable string of four galaxies just below and right of NGC 247 known as Burbidge's Chain. Burbidge's Chain galaxies are about 300 million light-years distant. The deep image even reveals that two of the galaxies in the chain are apparently interacting, joined by a faint bridge of material. NGC 247 itself is part of the Sculptor Group of galaxies along with the shiny spiral NGC 253.

Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile

24” PlaneWave CDK (LRGBHA)

NGC 7424

NGC 7424 is a barred spiral galaxy located 37.5 million light-years away in the southern constellation Grus (the Crane). Its size (about 100,000 light-years) makes it like our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It is called a "grand design" galaxy because of its well defined spiral arms. Two supernovae and two ultraluminous X-ray sources have been discovered in NGC 7424.

On December 10, 2001, the Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered SN 2001ig, a rare Type IIb supernova on the outer edge of NGC 7424. At the time of its maximum, the supernova was only three times fainter than the whole galaxy. It must have been a splendid firework!

It is now believed that indeed this supernova arose from the explosion of a very massive star, a so-called Wolf-Rayet star, which together with a massive hot companion belonged to a very close binary system in which the two stars orbited each other once every 100 days or so. The companion probably periodically stripped the outer hydrogen-rich envelope of the progenitor, accounting for the observed spectral changes, or the periodic mass loss was a result of the intense stellar wind these stars produce.
Image Processing and Calibration: Mark Hanson
24" Planewave CDK f6.5 and L600 Mount, Camera SBIG 16803 Location: SWOS, El Sauce Chile
Data Collection: Hanson, Mazlin, Parker, Forman 2023
Enjoy, Mark

NGC 2903

Explanation: The wonderful barred spiral galaxy NGC 2903 in the constellation of Leo is a well-known spring observing target for amateur astronomers. With a magnitude brighter than 10, it is easy to find and identify in a small telescope. However, only large-aperture telescopes or long-exposure photographs can reveal its intricate spiral structure.

NGC 2903s swirling whirlpool of stars spans 80,000 light-years  slightly less than our own Milky Way  and is located at a distance of some 25 million light-years. NGC 2903 is one of the more conspicuous northern objects that Charles Messier missed when compiling his catalogue of nebulous objects, so leaving its discovery to William Herschel.

Taken from Dark Sky New Mexico 17” CDK

Imaged and processed by me.

Enjoy, Mark

NGC 4945 is a barred spiral galaxy situated around 13 million light years away in Centaurus. It is one of the brightest galaxies in Centaurus. The galaxy is seen near edge on with an obvious bright center. The galaxy is roughly the size of the Milky Way. There are numerous dust lanes evident as well as many obvious star forming regions. Although the nucleus is obscured by dust, X-ray studies of NGC 4945 indicate high levels of radiation consistent with the existence of a massive black hole and active star formation.

Here is a new image I recently finished. Its actually part of a mosaic that will be finished soon, it shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4151 , along with quite a few others. Its located at a distance of about 45 million light years from us.

NGC 4151 is a Seyfert galaxy and hosts one of the brightest active galactic nuclei. The super massive black hole lying at the center of NGC 4151 has a mass of about 50 million solar masses.

The data file for this object is 65 Gigabyte!

NGC 5084

NGC 5084 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Virgo. It is located at about 80 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 5084 is at least 200,000 light years across. It is one of the largest and most massive galaxies in the Virgo Supercluster.
William Herschel discovered it on March 10, 1785. It is a member of the NGC 5084 Group of galaxies, which is a member of the Virgo II Groups, a series of galaxies and galaxy clusters strung out from the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster.
The galaxy is seen nearly edge-on, with inclination 86°, and features a warped disk and large quantities of HI gas extending along the disk, probably accumulated after multiple accretions of smaller galaxies.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson
Data: Mazlin, Forman, Parker, Hanson
Telescope1: 24" Planewave CDK f6.5 and L600 Mount, Camera SBIG 16803 Location: SWOS, El Sauce Chile
Enjoy,
The SWOS Team

NGC 6902 – “The Spinner”
NGC 6902 is an unbarred spiral galaxy located in the southern part of the constellation Sagittarius. This galaxy is rarely Photographed. The galaxy lies approximately 133 million light years away and was discovered by John Herschel. What an interesting vibrant galaxy with its many spiral arms, looks as if it’s spinning itself apart. There is very little I could find about this galaxy anywhere.
This galaxy has very heavy concentrations of dust in the central portion, the heavily interwoven arms have numerous star forming regions. The arms stretch quite far from the central portion of the galaxy and seemingly fade into a blue haze. Several other galaxies can be seen scattered across the field of view, including the smaller face-on spiral NGC 6902B to the upper left.
And far in the background countless distant galaxy groupings can be seen as small fuzzy dots throughout the image.
Hanson, Mazlin, Parker, Forman
6/12-6/17 2023 LRGB 705,360,360,360 min 30 Hours total
Telescope1: 24" Planewave CDK f6.5 and L600 Mount, Camera SBIG 16803 Location: SWOS, El Sauce Chile
Enjoy,
The SWOS Team

The Grus Trio of galaxies is in the Constellation of Grus, some 60 million lights years distant of Earth. The group is often referred to as The Grus Quartet, but NGC7552 is out of this field of view.
This galaxy triplet lies in the southern constellation of Grus and the three spiral galaxies (NGC 7582, 7590, 7599) exhibit telltale signs of gravitational interactions, such as the distortions of the upper two galaxies distending them toward the lower, NGC 7582 galaxy. Numerous other galaxies occur in this field-of-view. Often they are easily distinguished from the stars by their extended fuzzy halos or oblong shapes. The background galaxies lie at a much greater distance than the triad, which is about 60M light-years away.

NGC 2935
NGC 2935 is a barred spiral galaxy 125 million light years away in Hydra. The estimated diameter of NGC 2935 is 37,250 light years making it considerably smaller than our galaxy.
With its beautiful spiraling arms and star forming regions it really pops out in this wonderful field of view. The background is quite amazing with thousands of galaxies everywhere.
There are not to many images of this object to date.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile. Planewave CDK 1000

Image Processing: Mark Hanson
Data: Mike Selby
Enjoy, Mark

NGC 1888-1889
The galaxy pair NGC1888/1889 at around 110 million light years from us in Lepus was first discovered by William Herschel in 1785, although he only saw one of the pair, NGC 1888. It took Bindon Stoney using Lord Rosse's 72" in 1851 to discover the smaller galaxy in the pair which became NGC 1889.
Arp catalogued the pair as Arp 123 in his group of "Ellipticals close to and perturbing spirals". NGC 1888 does look as if it is being distorted by an encounter with extended spiral arms. The galaxy does have a spiral arm on the opposite side to NGC 1889 which contains lots of young blue stars.
The pair are almost certainly in the early throws of a merger.
Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile
Image Processing: Mark Hanson
Image Data and Calibration: Mike Selby PlaneWave CDK 1000

NGC 4731

A Barred spiral galaxy NGC 4731 lies some 65 million light-years away. The lovely island universe resides in the large Virgo cluster of galaxies. Colors in this well-composed, cosmic portrait shows many young, bluish star clusters along the galaxy's sweeping spiral arms. Its broad arms are distorted by gravitational interaction with a fellow Virgo cluster member, giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4697. NGC 4697 is beyond this frame above and to the left.
The field is littered with many galaxies and clusters of galaxies as well.
Of course, the individual, colorful, spiky stars in the scene are much closer, within our own Milky Way galaxy. NGC 4731 itself is well over 100,000 light-years across.
Imaged in LRGB and H alpha at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile. Planewave CDK 1000

Image Processing: Mark Hanson
Data: Mike Selby
Enjoy, Mark
www.hansonastronomy.com

Messier 94Most galaxies don't have any rings of stars and gas -- why does M94 have two? First, spiral galaxy M94 has an inner ring of newly formed stars surrounding its nucleus, giving it not only an unusual appearance but also a strong interior glow. A leading origin hypothesis holds that an elongated knot of stars known as a bar rotates in M94 and has generated a burst of star formation in this inner ring. Observations have also revealed another ring, an outer ring, one that is more faint, different in color, not closed, and relatively complex. What caused this outer ring is currently unknown. M94, pictured here, spans about 45,000 light years in total, lies about 15 million light years away, and can be seen with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici).

NGC 6384 is a barred spiral galaxy of about 150.000 light-years across that lies some 80 million light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer). It is speeding away from us at roughly 1680 kilometers per second.
The galaxy has blue spiral arms laced with dark dust lanes and a yellowish core. Star formation in the center is being fueled by the galaxy’s bar structure; astronomers think such galactic bars funnel gas inwards, where it accumulates to form new stars.
Many stars have already come to the ends of their lives in NGC 6384, but in 1971, we could witness one of its stars explode as a Type Ia supernova, which stood out against the bright foreground stars.
This occurs when a compact star that has ceased fusion in its core, called a white dwarf, increases its mass beyond a critical limit by gobbling up matter from a companion star. A runaway nuclear explosion then makes the star suddenly as bright as a whole galaxy.
Supernova explosions are enriching the intergalactic gas with elements like oxygen, iron, and silicon that will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets.
The positioning of NGC 6384, not far from the center of the Milky Way in the sky, means that it is somewhat obscured by our galaxy’s dust and stars. Combined with the galaxy’s low surface brightness, NGC 6384 is a bit of a challenging target for astrophotographers.

Messier 74 (also known as NGC 628) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. It is at a distance of about 32 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy contains two clearly defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a grand design spiral galaxy. The galaxy's low surface brightness makes it the most difficult Messier object for amateur astronomers to observe. However, the relatively large angular size of the galaxy and the galaxy's face-on orientation make it an ideal object for professional astronomers who want to study spiral arm structure and spiral density waves. It is estimated that M74 is home to about 100 billion stars

NGC 1566 “Spirograph in the Sky”

Not all of you remember the spirograph, but it was a very popular toy when I was a kid, in which you made cool, colorful, perfect spiral images. This image of NGC 1566 really reminds me of that toy. It must be the gorgeous face-on view of NGC 1566, its perfect spiral arms, and the wonderful blue clusters of stars dancing in its dark dust lanes. Overall, this may be the perfect galaxy.

NGC 1566, sometimes called the “Spanish Dancer” is located in the constellation Dorado, and is the brightest and most dominant galaxy in the Dorado Group, which is one of the richest galaxy groups in the southern hemisphere.

Imaged in LRGB on our CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 2207 “Things that go bump in the night”

NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are shown here in a near collision. Located approximately 80 million light years away from Earth the powerful tidal forces from NGC 2207 have caused major distortions in the shape of IC 2163 the smaller galaxy on the right.
The interaction has caused streams of stars and gas to extend as far as 100 thousand light years from IC 2163.
The near collision is estimated to have taken place around 40 million years ago and given the gravitational influence of NGC 2207 it is very likely the IC 2163 will be pulled back for another round and in a billion or so years the galaxies will merge. The tidal streams seen in the image will over time likely become star forming regions.

Imaged in LRGB on our CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 5530
NGC 5530 is a Spiral Galaxy located in the constellation of Lupus. Its distance from Earth is 40 million light years. NGC 5530 is referred to as NGC 5530 in the New General Catalogue. This is a list of deep space objects that was compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888 in an update to John Herschel's earlier catalogue.
When we observe NGC 5530, we are not looking at it as it currently appears but as it used to appear millions or billions of years ago given how long time takes to reach us from there.
How long would it take to get to 5530 traveling at different speeds? “ In year’s”
Walking (4mph) 6,663,484,255,884,955.88
Car (120mph) 222,116,141,862,831.86
Airbus A380 (736mph) 36,214,588,347,200.85
Speed of Sound (Mach 1) 34,738,712,268,500.13
Concorde (Mach 2) 17,369,333,496,383.17
New Horizons Probe 807,695,061,319.39
Speed of Light 39,745,416.19

Imaged in LRGB with CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson
Data Collection and Calibration: Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Mike & Mark
http://hansonastronomy.com
http://throughlightandtime.com

ARP 248 sometimes referred to as Wild’s triplet is a group of 3 interacting galaxies 270 million light years away (NED data base estimate) in Virgo. There is a spectacular tidal tailstar that can be seen connecting all three galaxies. (PGC36742, PGC36733 and PGC36723)
The small galaxy in-between 36733 and 36723 is PGC1065954 which is not part of the group. No red shift data base calculations are available to establish the distance of PGC1065954.

Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

www.hansonastronomy.com
www.throughlightandtime.com

Enjoy, Mark and Mike

NGC 6769

Galaxy Triplet NGC 6769-71 is a gravitational interacting triplet of galaxies, located about 190 million light years away in the southern constellation of Pavo (the Peacock).
Most galaxies are members of clusters of galaxies. In these, they move around among each other in a mostly slow and graceful ballet. But every now and then, two or more of the members may get too close for comfort – the movements become hectic, sometimes indeed dramatic, as when galaxies end up colliding. This image shows an example of such a cosmic tango.
As dramatic and destructive as this may seem, such an interaction event is also an enrichment, a true baby-star boom. A cosmic catastrophe like this one normally results in the formation of many new stars. This is obvious from the blueish nature of the spiral arms in NGC 6769 (lower right) and NGC 6770 (lower left) and the presence of many sites of star forming regions.
The two upper galaxies, NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are of equal brightness and size, while NGC 6771 (above) is about half as bright and slightly smaller. All three galaxies possess a central bulge of similar brightness. They consist of elderly, reddish stars and that of NGC 6771 is remarkable for its “boxy” shape, a rare occurrence among galaxies.
All three galaxies are barred spiral galaxies: NGC 6769 with very tightly wound spiral arms, while NGC 6770 has two major spiral arms, one of which is rather straight and points towards the outer disk of NGC 6769. NGC 6770 is also peculiar in that it presents two comparatively straight dark lanes and a fainter arc that curves towards the third galaxy, NGC 6771.
Stars and gas have been stripped off NGC 6769 and NGC 6770, starting to form a common envelope around them, in the shape of a Devil’s Mask. There is also a weak hint of a tenuous bridge between NGC 6769 and NGC 6771. All of these features testify to strong gravitational interaction between the three galaxies. The warped appearance of the dust lane in NGC 6771 might also be interpreted as more evidence of interactions.
Moreover, NGC 6769 and NGC 6770 are receding from us at a similar velocity of about 3800 kilometers per second while that of NGC 6771 is slightly larger, 4200 kilometers per second.
NGC 6769 was home to at least two supernovae: SN 1997de and SN 2006ox.

Description by "Sakib Rasool"

This dramatic galaxy portrait depicts the disturbed and peculiar galaxy NGC 5128 in the constellation of Centaurus. The result of a merger between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, it displays a wide variety of kinematical features. It is the closest known active galaxy at 11 million light years.

The remnant of the original spiral galaxy is represented by its central dust lane highlighted along its edges with the signatures of star formation such as blue star clusters and red emission nebulae. Many cosmic collisions between galaxies trigger a massive starburst of starforming activity as the neutral gas reservoir is increased and pressure and gravity compress gas clouds into active sites of starbirth. The original collision has also strewn small dust globules across the disk of the galaxy.

This intergalactic encounter between two galaxies has also deformed the structure of the original elliptical galaxy and faint tidal shells envelop the galaxy. They were originally discovered by the astronomers David Malin and David Carter in the 1970's through special photographic amplification techniques. Their discovery prompted the publication of a catalogue of shell elliptical galaxies in 1983 and there are a few hundred known to belong to this category. Images with a wider field of view than this show multiple interlocking shells that extend even further. The origin of these shells are minor mergers with multiple smaller galaxies and are created by the disruption of orbits of captured stars.

NGC 5128 is also known as Centaurus A and this particular naming scheme denotes the first radio source to be discovered in a particular constellation. As it has been detected by astronomers in observations made with radio telescopes, it belongs to another category of radio galaxies. Radio galaxies are so-called as they radiate more emission in radio than in optical. They are a type of active galactic nucleus (usually abbreviated to AGN). As the name suggests, galaxies that feature an AGN have an energetic nuclear region centered around a supermassive black hole.

Although not immediately apparent, the AGN activity in Centaurus A is represented optically by a long filamentary jet, which can be seen north of the core. The jet arises from an outflow of gas that has built up in the accretion disk surrounding the supermassive black hole and its narrow appearance is the product of interacting magnetic fields associated with the black hole. This jet appears as an impressive bipolar outflow in x-ray and radio images.

NGC 4027 (also known as Arp 22) is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 83 million light-years away[2] in the constellation Corvus. It is also a peculiar galaxy because one of its spiral arms goes out more than the other. This is probably due to a galactic collision in NGC 4027's past.

NGC 7285 and NGC 7284 (right and left respectively) are in the process of merging. They are located 196 million light years away in Aquarius and at an apparent field of view size of only 2×1’ each are a challenge to image. NGC 7284 is variously listed as a barred spiral or a Lenticular Galaxy while 7285 is classed as a spiral galaxy. There is a massive tidal stream extending around 200,000 light years resulting from the interaction. The pair are listed in the ARP catalog of peculiar galaxies as ARP 93.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson
www.throughlightandtime.com
www.hansonastronomy.com

Sombrero Galaxy - M 104

One of most famous spiral galaxies is Messier 104, widely known as the "Sombrero" (the Mexican hat) because of its particular shape. It is located towards the constellation Virgo (the ‘virgin’), at a distance of about 30 million light-years and is the 104th object in the famous catalogue of deep-sky objects by French astronomer Charles Messier (1730 - 1817).

This extremely detailed amateur image was taken by Martin Pugh and processed by me. Please take a look at the full resolution image and the wonderful detail in the core of the galaxy. Also note the tidal stream at the bottom of the image (first discovered by David Malin with the Anglo-Australian Telescope)

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 555,300,300,300 Min each

NGC 4696

is an elliptical galaxy 154 million light years away in Centaurus. It is the brightest galaxy in the Centaurus cluster.

Faint filaments are visible in the central core area where a massive black hole is located. It is thought the black hole outputs energy that heats surrounding gas, pushing out cooler filaments of gas and dust. There is no apparent star formation taking place. There are several faint shell structures which are also evident.

In the image field are a massive number of background galaxies.
There is an excellent highly detailed Hubble image of the area of NGC 4696. The black hole region was also imaged and studied by Chandra X ray observatory. The galaxy is estimated to span 165,000 light years.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Enjoy, Mark and Mike

www.hansonastronomy.com
www.throughlightandtime.com

Sextans A- PGC29653

Is a small irregular dwarf galaxy spanning only 5000 light years. It is located around 4.3 million light years from here in Sextans.
The galaxy has numerous hydrogen regions which are quite prominent in this image and numerous young blue stars. The galaxies shape has been affected by shock waves from a number of supernova explosions.


Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our Planewave CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.


Image Processing: Mark Hanson Data: Mike Selby

Enjoy, Mark and Mike

NGC 4939

Located around 150 million light years away in Virgo, NGC 4939 is spiral galaxy with unusually long thin arms and numerous star forming regions. The nucleus is active as it varies in intensity over short time scales.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave

CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Enjoy, Mark and Mike

NGC 2442 “The Meat Hook Galaxy”
This image is a collaboration between Mike Selby and Myself. I have to say this is one of the best amateur data sets I have worked with, and the results are quite amazing.
NGC 2442 is located around 50 million light-years away in the constellation of Volans. The galaxy is 75,000 light-years wide and has quite a peculiar shape featuring two dusty spiral arms extending from a central bar that gives it a hook-like appearance. Given its appearance it is often referred to as “The Meat Hook Galaxy.” The galaxy’s distorted shape is most likely the result of a close encounter with a smaller galaxy sometime in the past. A considerable amount of IFN is present in the field proximate to the galaxy and the image shows faint star streams at the ends of the arms of the galaxy.
Imaged in LRGB and H alpha OTA CDK 1000 Luminance, RGB and H alpha. Additional RGB RiDK 500.
Imaged at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile
Integration time: 47 hours
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 3628 is classed as an unbarred spiral galaxy 35 million light years away in Leo. Along with M 65 and M66 it is part of what is referred to as the Leo triplet. The galaxy features a tidal tail (part of which is shown here) that stretches 300,000 light years). While classified as unbarred, there is some speculation that it is actually a barred galaxy due to the X shaped bulge in the central portion. Bar formation is often triggered by interaction with other galaxies, and 3628 is interacting with the other two galaxies in the triplet.

The galaxy features numerous dust lanes and several obvious regions of active star formation. There are many distant background galaxies throughout the image.

Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Mark & Mike

NGC 3109 is a small barred Magellanic type spiral or irregular galaxy around 4.34 Mly away in the direction of the constellation of Hydra. NGC 3109 is believed to be tidally interacting with the dwarf elliptical galaxy Antlia Dwarf.

alk about a busy and varied field of galaxies in Centaurus!
Here's the breakdown:

NGC 3568 center right is a barred spiral galaxy 133 million light years away based on NED data. It was the site of a supernova in 2014.

NGC 3564 lower right is a lenticular galaxy 152 million light years away based on NED data.

PGC33824 upper left is an elliptical galaxy 154 million light years away based on NED data.

NGC3557 at the lower left is an elliptical galaxy 163 million light years away based on NED data.

PGC 623471 upper left center appears to be a faint spiral galaxy much further away, but no red shift data is available to calculate distance.


Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson.

www.throughlightandtime.com
www.hansonastronomy.com

NGC 2775
The spiral pattern shown by the galaxy in this image is striking because of its delicate, feathery nature. These "flocculent" spiral arms indicate that the recent history of star formation of the galaxy, known as NGC 2775, has been relatively quiet. There is virtually no star formation in the central part of the galaxy, which is dominated by an unusually large and relatively empty galactic bulge, where all the gas was converted into stars long ago.
NGC 2275 is classified as a flocculent spiral galaxy, located 67 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer.
Millions of bright, young, blue stars shine in the complex, feather-like spiral arms, interlaced with dark lanes of dust. Complexes of these hot, blue stars are thought to trigger star formation in nearby gas clouds. The overall feather-like spiral patterns of the arms are then formed by shearing of the gas clouds as the galaxy rotates. The spiral nature of flocculents stands in contrast to the grand design spirals, which have prominent, well defined-spiral arms.

Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson. Journey cruise

The Galaxies Galore 2 Gigapixel image is one of the largest collection of Galaxies on one canvas with over 200 galaxies in a wonderful montage galactic print. This image took over 10 years to finish. Well, it will never be finished as we will keep adding to it. This gigantic 4 gigapixel montage is a must see. You can own it on your walls at home or in the office. Would be a great wallpaper for a kid’s room or man cave. A large metal print of this would look stunning on any wall. We also have the Galaxy Galore collection of clothing, with fantastic hoodies, T-shirts and other apparel and products.

Explanation: Peculiar spiral galaxy Arp 78 is found within the boundaries of the head strong constellation Aries, some 100 million light-years beyond the stars and nebulae of our Milky Way galaxy. Also known as NGC 772, the island universe is over 100 thousand light-years across and sports a single prominent outer spiral arm in this detailed cosmic portrait. Its brightest companion galaxy, compact NGC 770, is toward the upper right of the larger spiral. NGC 770's fuzzy, elliptical appearance contrasts nicely with a spiky foreground Milky Way star in matching yellowish hues. Tracking along sweeping dust lanes and lined with young blue star clusters, Arp 78's large spiral arm is likely due to gravitational tidal interactions. Faint streams of material seem to connect Arp 78 with its nearby companion galaxies.

NGC 1097 is a barred spiral galaxy 50 million light years away in Fornax.

There are a number of interesting features
The galaxy contains a super massive black hole 140 million times greater than our sun.
The black hole is surrounded by a ring replete with new star formation.
The ring is lit by an influx of material moving towards the central bar of the galaxy.
The galaxy contains four optical jets (one of which is extremely faint) that seem to emanate from the nucleus region. Studies have determined the jets are not emissions but are made up of stars.
There are two satellite galaxies NGC 1097 A and B.

​​​​​​​A is a peculiar galaxy which is orbiting only 42000 light years from the center of NGC 1097 while B is a dwarf galaxy which was discovered by emissions and has not been well studied.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our CDK 1000 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

NGC 7552
The image is centered on NGC 7552 which is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Grus. It is at a distance of 60 million light years from Earth, with an estimated size of about 75,000 light years across. It forms with three other spiral galaxies what is termed the Grus Quartet. This galaxy appears to possess a small-scale molecular bar and a large reservoir of molecular material, but there is no evidence for current activity, either starburst or Seyfert-like, at the nucleus. In the wider frame image, at the top right is PGC 100685 which NED database puts at a distance of 1.8 billion light years.
Imaged in LRGB on our CDK 1000 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile
Integration Time: L 13.5 hours, RGB 5 hours each channel
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Explanation: Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax galaxy cluster. This impressively sharp color image shows intense star forming regions at the ends of the bar and along the spiral arms, and details of dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole.

NGC 6907 is a spiral galaxy in Capricornus around 130 million light years away. The galaxy is only 3×2’ in the field of view and we were unable to find any other clear images that have been taken.
The galaxy has two prominent spiral arms and an elliptical bulge which is offset towards the base of the arms. The galaxy also has a central bar.
Of interest is NGC 6908 the small bright galaxy that appears embedded in the upper right portion of the galaxy in this image. This was originally thought to be a bright spot within NGC 6907, but has since with infrared studies been properly identified as a low luminosity lenticular galaxy situated further from us than NGC 6907.
It appears that NGC 6908 passed through the disk of NGC 6907 and a stellar and gas bridge was formed between the two galaxies that has been observed as high velocity gas. It is estimated that NGC 6908 passed through the disk approximately 35 million years ago.
Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

NGC 4631 The Whale Galaxy

Taken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8 Apogee U16M High Cooling.

Luminance 1200 1x1, RGB 1x1 20 min subs, Red 220
Green 200, Blue 240

NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy. Seen edge-on, it lies only 25 million light-years away in the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. The galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others its popular moniker, The Whale Galaxy. Either way, it is similar in size to our own Milky Way. In this sharp color image, the galaxy's yellowish core, dark dust clouds, bright blue star clusters, and red star forming regions are easy to spot. A companion galaxy, the small elliptical NGC 4627 is just above the Whale Galaxy. Faint star streams seen in deep images are the remnants of small companion galaxies disrupted by repeated encounters with the Whale in the distant past. The Whale Galaxy is also known to have spouted a halo of hot gas glowing in X-rays.

New Reprocessed Image from Mike Selby and Myself. Its amazing what we learn over the years to make same data look better.

Very infrequently imaged NGC 4901 is spiral galaxy in Pavo. There is almost no research that has been done on this galaxy. It is situated 98 million light years from here.
The small galaxy in the top left with a tiny satellite galaxy is PGC 63808. NED puts it at a distance of 544 million light years from here and it is listed as an apparent magnitude of 22.
In the image of IC 4901 we identified two small jets (ejecta streams) that appear as narrow star streams between 10 and 11 o’clock in the image projecting nearly perpendicular to the arms of the galaxy. We think this is the first time these have been identified, but do not know the composition or cause.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby
www.throughlightandtime.com
www.hansonastronomy.com

M 99 is a grand design unbarred spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices around 46 million light years from here. Due to its shape it is often termed the Coma Pinwheel Galaxy.Imaged at SSRO,Chile. OTA RCOS 16
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 4631 The Whale Galaxy

Taken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8 Apogee U16M High Cooling.

Luminance 1200 1x1, RGB 1x1 20 min subs, Red 220
Green 200, Blue 240

NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy. Seen edge-on, it lies only 25 million light-years away in the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. The galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others its popular moniker, The Whale Galaxy. Either way, it is similar in size to our own Milky Way. In this sharp color image, the galaxy's yellowish core, dark dust clouds, bright blue star clusters, and red star forming regions are easy to spot. A companion galaxy, the small elliptical NGC 4627 is just above the Whale Galaxy. Faint star streams seen in deep images are the remnants of small companion galaxies disrupted by repeated encounters with the Whale in the distant past. The Whale Galaxy is also known to have spouted a halo of hot gas glowing in X-rays.

New Reprocessed Image from Mike Selby and Myself. Its amazing what we learn over the years to make same data look better.

Cosmic Shell Games
NGC 474 and NGC 470
NGC 474 is a large elliptical galaxy 100 million light years away in Pisces. It forms an interacting pair with NGC 470 the spiral galaxy to the right and is classified in the Peculiar Galaxy catalog as ARP 227 and peculiar it is.
NGC 474 has an unusual and complex series of shell layers and tidal streams that surround the central part of the galaxy and its core.
The origin of the structure has been somewhat of a mystery, however it was recently postulated that the tidal features come from the accretion of a spiral galaxy that collided around 1.3 billion years ago and merged around 900 million years ago.
Volume 660, April 2022 of AANDA in the Extragalactic Astronomy section theorizes that based on the phase-space wrapping model by Quinn the formation of the shells began by a nearly radial minor or intermediate merger of the two galaxies. The large galaxy disrupted the smaller secondary galaxy by tidal forces causing the release of stars which moved out at various radial velocities. The orbital period and position was then determined by pericentric velocities. In effect then the shells are density waves made of stars near the epicenters of their orbits and expand over time.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

NGC 6814 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in Aquila 75 million light years from here.
The galaxy is seen almost face on and is classified as a Seyfert galaxy with a very bright nucleus . There is a huge black hole at least 10 million times the mass of our sun within the galaxy which is surrounded by a region of hot plasma.
Imaged in LRGB on our CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

NGC 7727, also known as Arp 222, is a face on spiral galaxy in Aquarius.

First discovered by William Herschel in 1785, the galaxy has numerous star streams and plumes associated with it which are probably the result of a merger with another spiral galaxy about 1 billion years ago. It may take another billion years for this merger to settle down. It was this odd shape that led to its inclusion in Arp’s catalogue of peculiar galaxies. The support for the merger scenario comes from the fact that there are two star like objects near the core of NGC 7727, one of which may be the core of the merging galaxy and the other the main core of NGC 7727.

NGC 7727 does not seem to have a large reservoir of hydrogen gas to form new stars so it is probably going to become an elliptical galaxy in the future. Images from GALEX, an ultraviolet satellite, show very little star formation going on at the current time in NGC 7727 compared to its neighbor NGC 7724.

NGC 6822 (also known as Barnard's Galaxy, IC 4895, or Caldwell 57) is a barred irregular galaxy approximately 1.6 million light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Part of the Local Group of galaxies, it was discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1884 (hence its name), with a six-inch refractor telescope. It is one of the closer galaxies to the Milky Way. It is similar in structure and composition to the Small Magellanic Cloud. It is about 7,000 light-years in diameter.

IC 5152
IC 5152 is an irregular galaxy, this small blue galaxy is resolved into stars in this image, which means that it is relatively nearby. However, despite its proximity, it is probably just beyond the Local Group, which is a loose collection of 30 or so galaxies within 2 or 3 million light years of the Milky Way.
Apart from the Milky Way and the similarly massive M31 galaxy in Andromeda, most of our immediate extra-galactic neighbors are light-weight collections of stars and gas like IC 5152, though few (except the Large Magellanic Cloud) show such strong evidence of recent star formation.
The large bright star in this image is an 8th magnitude blue star in the Milky Way.

Imaged in LRGB on a Planewave CDK 24 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 3718 – Arp 214
My image from this data won the Robotic Telescope award at APOY back in 2014. We decided it was time to see what we could do with the same data set years later. Here is the Result.

NGC 3718 also known as ARP 214 is located 52 million light years away in Ursa Major. The galaxy is highly unusual. It is a highly disturbed galaxy that was initially thought to be a lenticular galaxy but is now considered to likely be a spiral galaxy due to the faint arm extensions that are apparent in the image. There are however certain characteristics that are like a polar ring galaxy.
If that wasn’t enough the twisted shape is certainly due to interactions with NGC 3729.

Imaged in LRGB in New Mexico, OTA RCOS 14 Image

Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

www.hansonastronomy.com
www.throughlightandtime.com

Enjoy,

Mark & Mike

NGC 4725



While most spiral galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have two or more spiral arms, NGC 4725 has only one. In this sharp color composite image, the solo spira mirabilis seems to wind from a prominent ring of bluish, newborn star clusters and red tinted star forming regions. The odd galaxy also sports obscuring dust lanes a yellowish central bar structure composed of an older population of stars. NGC 4725 is over 100 thousand light-years across and lies 41 million light-years away in the well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. Computer simulations of the formation of single spiral arms suggest that they can be either leading or trailing arms with respect to a galaxy's overall rotation. Also included in the frame, sporting a noticably more traditional spiral galaxy look, is a more distant background galaxy.

Telescope: Planewave 24" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount Camera: SBIG 16803

Location: Stellar Winds Observatory at DSNM, Animas, New Mexico

This latest version is same data processed years later by Mike Selby and Myself.

Explanation: NGC 2685 is a confirmed polar ring galaxy - a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the chance capture of material from another galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris strung out in a rotating ring. Still, observed properties of NGC 2685 suggest that the rotating ring structure is remarkably old and stable. In this sharp view of the peculiar system also known as Arp 336 or the Helix galaxy, the strange, perpendicular rings are easy to trace as they pass in front of the galactic disk, along with other disturbed outer structures. NGC 2685 is about 50,000 light-years across and 40 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.

NGC 5746 “The Small Sombrero”
NGC 5746 is a barred spiral galaxy seen near edge on in Virgo. It is located 99 million light years from here. The galaxy is quite massive and has a large halo of hot gas surrounding the central disk region.
The image shows intricate dust lanes throughout the galaxy, given the edge on presentation the shape of the spiral arms is not visible.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Enjoy,

Mike & Mark

NGC 5248
NGC 5248 is a small intermediate spiral galaxy located 59 million light years from here in Bootes.
The galaxy is classed as a grand design SAB spiral with a short bar.
Of interest are the two circumnuclear star forming rings which are 100 and 370 parsecs from the rather inactive nucleus region.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson
Enjoy,

Mike & Mark
http://hansonastronomy.com
http://throughlightandtime.com

NGC 5247
NGC 5247 is an unbarred face on spiral galaxy located 60 million light years from here. The galaxy presents face on giving a nice view of its pinwheel arm structure.
It is a member of the Virgo Super Cluster of galaxies.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson
Enjoy,

Mike & Mark
http://hansonastronomy.com
http://throughlightandtime.com

“Beautiful Barred Bars of NGC 1672”

This spectacular amateur image of NGC 1672 is located between 52 and 60 million light years away in Dorado. It is a barred spiral galaxy seen almost face on and shows several regions of intense star formation.

The greatest concentration of star formation is found in the starburst regions near the ends of the galaxy s galactic bar.

NGC 1672 is a prototypical barred spiral galaxy and differs from normal spiral galaxies in that the spiral arms do not twist all the way into the center. Instead, they are attached to the two ends of a straight bar of stars enclosing the nucleus. Several Ionized hydrogen regions are also visible.


Imaged in LRGB and H Alpha on our CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Obstech, Chile

Image Processing: Mark Hanson, Mike Selby


Enjoy,

Mike & Mark

NGC 4536 is an intermediate spiral galaxy 50 million light years away in Virgo. It is not imaged very often.
The galaxy is classified as a starburst galaxy as it hosts active areas of star formation. This requires a significant amount of gas within a small area and might be the result of a past collision.
Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 6744

NGC 6744 is an intermediate spiral galaxy located 30 million light years away in Pavo. The galaxy is considered to be similar although larger than the Milky Way and it exhibits an elongated core with flocculent arms. Nearby is a small distorted companion galaxy which is designated as NGC 6744A The are numerous star formation regions present in NGC 6744.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson/Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Mark & Mike

One third of the Leo Triplet NGC 3628 is often called the Hamburger Galaxy.
It is an edge on spiral galaxy located 35 million light years from here.
The disk of NGC 3628 is warped and there is a long relatively faint tidal tail which is the result of interaction with M65 and M66 the other members of the triplet.
Imaged in LRGB on our RiDK 700 and Planewave CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby
www.throughlightandtime.com
www.hansonastronomy.com

Messier 61
M 61 is an intermediate barred spiral galaxy 54 million light years away in Virgo and is part of the Virgo cluster.
The galaxy is seen face on and is classed as a starburst galaxy showing multiple areas of star formation in the arms as well as numerous veins of dust throughout with an intensely bright tight spiral towards the central region.
Of note is M 61 is the site of 6 supernovae observations.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

NGC 4123
NGC 4123 (top right) is a spiral galaxy in Virgo located around 108 million light years from here based on Cal Tech estimates. It contains a number of active star forming regions. NGC 4116 (bottom left) is a barred spiral galaxy with distance estimated at 100 million light years. It should be noted that distance calculations for these two galaxies vary greatly with the Caltech estimates at the high end of the scale.
We believe this is the first clear amateur image of these two galaxies.
Imaged in LRGB at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile on our Planewave CDK 1000.
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson
www.hansonastronomy.com
www.throughlightandtime.com
Thank you,

Mike & Mark

HCG 90”
Hickson Compact Galaxy Group 90

Located around 120 million light years from us in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus is Hickson Compact Galaxy Group 90. Highlighted by the trio of NGC 7173, 7174 and 7176 which are thought to be in the process of a slow merger. Of interest is NGC 7174 which is a highly distorted spiral galaxy that is being ripped apart by its neighbors.
Imaged in LRGB on our CDK 1000 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile
Integration Time: 24 hours 45 minutes

www.hansonastronomy.com
http://throughlightandtime.com
Thank you,

Mike & Mark

M 95 is a barred spiral galaxy 35 million light years away in Leo.
The galaxy features a prominent star forming ring. It was also the site of a supernova observation in 2016.
Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

94 million light years away in Hydra ,NGC 5078 spans approximately 127,000 light years.
The galaxy is a large lenticular galaxy seen edge on, and is interacting with its smaller neighbor IC 879.
The galaxy is highlighted by warped dust lanes due to interaction with IC 879. IC 879 also shows evidence of significant distortion given its S shape.
Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Messier 96
“Holding the Baby Galaxy”
M 96 is an intermediate spiral galaxy situated approximately 31 million light years away in Leo.

The galaxy core is oddly displaced from the center. The spiral arms are not very well defined, and the dust lanes are offset. There is a ring like structure of stars around the central part of the galaxy. These unusual features point to some form of interaction with other galaxies in the distant past.

There is a small edge on spiral galaxy that appears embedded in M96, this is an optical illusion and astronomers estimate this galaxy may be as much as 180 million light years away.
All in all, an interesting galaxy to observe.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Enjoy,

Mark & Mike

NGC 3521 “Marquise in the Sky”



Like a big solitaire marquise diamond, this wonderful nighttime galactic gem is 35 million light years away in the constellation Leo.

A flocculent intermediate spiral galaxy, NGC 3521 lacks the clearly-defined arm structure that we see in some other spirals. Surrounded by dust, the galaxy has numerous star-forming areas and a luminous center. The dust bubbles are likely from encounters and mergers long ago with satellite galaxies.

Also, notice the rarely seen Hydrogen Alpha jets emanation from this galaxy.

Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 and CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby
Buy Print

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 3200

Very rarely imaged NGC 3200 is a barred spiral galaxy in Hydra. The galaxy is approximately 160 million light years from Earth. A SINGG study found the galaxy has one of the highest neutral hydrogen contents yet observed.
The galaxy is set against a rich background of smaller galaxies many of which are unusual in form.


Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 and PlaneWave CDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.


Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

Enjoy,

Mike & Mark

Click on the annotated version for full Resolution.

“Like our Milkyway Galaxy?”

NGC 2280 75 million light years from here in Canis Major, NGC 2280 is a spiral galaxy that is thought to be similar in shape to our own Milky Way. The spiral arms have obvious star forming regions but are otherwise somewhat sparse.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Imaged in LRGB on a RiDK 700 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Enjoy,

Mike & Mark

NGC 5054 “Gem in Virgo”
NGC 5054 is a beautiful spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation. The galaxy is small in the field of view at an apparent 4×2’. The galaxy has an irregular shape with two of the arms bending back around the galaxy. This small but relatively bright galaxy and allows a reasonable amount of detail and color to come through. This is amazing when you consider that the light from this galaxy has been travelling for 82 million years towards us. The dust lanes are quite evident, as are the star forming areas of the two major spiral arms. These are within the bluish regions of the arms. Its irregular shape suggests a possible interaction in the past.
Upper left center is a nice spiral galaxy PGC 46193 at .9’x.2’ its amazing to get some detail in this galaxy, as well as the interesting galaxy just left of this PGC 894598 at .4’x.3’ very cool ring galaxy.
The background is littered with hundreds of small galaxies.
Image Processing: Selby/Hanson
www.hansonastronomy.com
http://throughlightandtime.com
Imaged in LRGB on a Planewave CDK 1000 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile
Integration Time: 28 hours

Thank you,

Mike & Mark

NGC 3742

is a barred spiral galaxy located around 125 million light years away in Centaurus. The apparent size in the field of view is around 2’. At a magnitude of 12.1 the galaxy is relatively faint. Also in Centaurus, NGC 3749 is a spiral galaxy seen edge on. It is situated 130 million light years from Earth.

Both galaxies have been rarely imaged.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 for Luminance and PlaneWave CDK 700 for RGB at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 1512


NGC 1512 is a barred spiral galaxy 38 million light years from earth. In photos the shape is somewhat unusual with several loose far flung arms. The galaxy displays a double ring structure with one ring outside on the main disk and another surrounding the galactic nucleus.There are clear multiple areas of new star formation. NGC 1512 is in the process of merging with nearby lenticular galaxy NGC 1510 which is part of the cause of the tidal distortion seen in the outside arms of NGC 1512.


Imaged in LRGB and Ha on our CDK 1000 at Obstech, Chile.
Integration time: 45 hours

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 134


NGC 134 is a lesser known intermediate barred spiral galaxy in Sculptor. It spans 150,000 light years making it larger than the Milky Way which it is thought to resemble. The image shows substantial filamentary structure and dust lanes as well as some blue star forming regions.

Imaged in LRGB with a Planewave CDK 1000 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile
Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 3256


100 million light years from here in Vela, NGC 3256 is a peculiar galaxy that was formed from the merger of two galaxies. The merger left a highly distorted appearance. NGC 3256 has not been imaged often as it is quite small in the field of view. Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 (luminance) and PlaneWave CDK 700 (RGB) at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 3312-3313

Part of what is known as the Abell 1060 galaxy cluster this image highlights NGC 3312 a large inclined spiral galaxy in Hydra in the center of the frame which is approximately 200 million light years away and NGC 3314 at the top left which is a pair of overlapping spiral galaxies 117 and 140 million light years away which give the illusion of colliding but are quite far from each other. Many other galaxies are seen in the field including the large elliptical galaxies NGC 3311 and NGC 3309 center right and NGC 3316 center far left.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 for Luminance and CDK 700 for RGB at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.

Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

There is a nice labeled version as well as a few 100% Crops of the main subjects.

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 2427 is an intermediate barred spiral galaxy in Puppies. The galaxy is around 45 million light years away. At magnitude 12 and with very low surface brightness details are not easy to resolve and this galaxy has been rarely imaged.
The galaxy is seen through a field with multiple scattered integrated flux nebulae giving the background a cloudy appearance.
Imaged in LRGB on our Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile
Integration Time: 29 hours
Image Processing: Mike Selby and Mark Hanson

NGC 3313

Is a large, very rarely imaged, barred spiral galaxy in Hydra. It is 180 million light years distant and is an outlying member of the Hydra cluster. The galaxy has a complete inner ring with two faint dust lanes in the bar. A circular ring surrounds the nucleus. The spiral structure emanating from the ring area is complex and wraps tightly around the ring. The outer arms have a well defined two arm pattern with multiple spiral segments extending far from the main galaxy body.

Imaged in LRGB on our PlaneWave CDK 1000 for Luminance and PlaneWave CDK 700 for RGB color at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 3621

Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the southern constellation Hydra.

This interesting spiral galaxy has beautiful winding spiral arms, Luminous blue star clusters, pinkish star forming regions and wonderful dust lanes. Interesting though, this spiral galaxy has a flat disk unlike other spirals which have a central bulge. Despite not having a central bulge, it has a system of three black holes in its central region.

For astronomers NGC 3621 has not been just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe.

Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile

Data and Processing Mark Hanson, Mike Selby

Planewave 24 and 700 CDK (LRGBHA)

Thank you,

Mark

NGC 2217

NGC 2217 is a nearly face-on lenticular galaxy of about 100 thousand light-years across that lies roughly 65 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Canis Major. It is part of the NGC 2217 Group of galaxies. It is classified as a barred spiral galaxy.

A notable feature is the swirling shape of this galaxy. In its very concentrated central region we can see a distinctive, very luminous bar of stars within an oval ring. Further out, a set of tightly wound spiral arms almost form a circular ring around the galaxy.

Central bars play an important role in the development of a galaxy. They can, for example, funnel gas towards the center of the galaxy, helping to feed a central black hole, or to form new stars.

Imaged in LRGB with a Planewave CDK 24 & RiDk 700 at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile

Image Processing: Mark Hanson

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 2997

NGC 2997 is a bright, unbarred grand design spiral galaxy, located about 40 million light-years away in the southern constellation Antlia (the Air pump). It is the brightest member of a group of galaxies of the same name in the Local Supercluster of galaxies along with the Local Group.

NGC 2997 contains hundreds of billions of stars and is thought to have a mass of about 100 billion times that of our Sun, but is probably less massive than our own Milky Way Galaxy. The galaxy is speeding away from us at about 1085 kilometers per second.

With a disk that is inclined 45 degrees to our line of sight, NGC 2997 has an oval appearance. The inner disk is covered with dust lanes, silhouetted against the central part of the galaxy, which shows a high surface brightness.

Like all grand design spirals, NGC 2997 has prominent and well-defined spiral arms, which appear to originate in the yellow nucleus. These sprawling arms are peppered with bright red blobs of ionized hydrogen which are regions of star formation, where the bright blue stars are born that generate most of the light in the arms of the galaxy.

Its small nucleus, that most likely hosts a supermassive black hole, also shows an interesting structure and concentrates an older population of yellowish stars. The nucleus is surrounded by a chain of hot giant clouds of ionized hydrogen.
Imaged in LRGB and Ha on a PlaneWave CDK 1000 and 700 at Obstech, Chile.
Integration time: 45 hours

Image Processing: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby

Enjoy,

Hanson & Selby

NGC 1532
NGC 1532 has always been a fan favorite.
Along with the smaller galaxy NGC 1531 this pair of interacting galaxies is located about 55 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Eridanus.
NGC 1531 – the small galaxy with a bright core lies just above the center of its companion and is a lenticular dwarf galaxy around 20,000 light-years across.
NGC 1532, the large galaxy is a nearly edge-on, deformed barred spiral galaxy about 180 thousand light-years across. While It may possess several dwarf companion galaxies, it is clearly interacting with NGC 1531.
These two galaxies are gravitationally bound and very close to each other. As a result, NGC 1532 became distorted: one of its spiral arms is warped and plumes of dust and gas are visible above its disk. The interaction has also triggered bursts of star formation in both galaxies. This is obvious in NGC 1532 where a whole new generation of massive stars has been born which are visible in the spiral arms.
In addition, some material may have migrated to NGC 1531, which shows an S-shaped dust lane crossing its center. Over time the gravitational interaction of the two galaxies will tear NGC 1531 apart and merge its remains with NGC 1532.
Imaged in LRGB and Hydrogen Alpha on our CDK 1000 (RGB CDK 700) at El Sauce, Obstech, Chile

NGC 1808- In Columbia

NGC 1808 is a barred spiral galaxy of some 35,000 light-years across, located about 40 million light-years away in the southern constellation Columba. NGC 1808 is undergoing so much star formation it has been deemed a starburst galaxy. The galaxy is moving away from us at 995 kilometers per second.

NGC 1808 is distinguished by a peculiar and complex nucleus, an unusually warped disk, and strange flows of hydrogen gas out from the central regions. The galaxy’s center is the hotbed of vigorous star formation.

The starburst must be at least 50 million years old, and can be no older than 100 million years old. Star formation has been rapid and continuous. Without an influx of fresh molecular gas into the central region, the star forming activity can only be maintained at this rate for another 6 to 20 million years.

NGC 1808 is called a barred spiral galaxy because of the straight lines of star formation on both sides of the bright nucleus. This star formation may have been triggered by the rotation of the bar, or by matter which is streaming along the bar towards the nuclear region (feeding the starburst). Filaments of dust are being ejected from the core into the galactic halo by massive stars that have exploded as supernovae in the starburst region.

The first image was taken from both a 1 meter and a 24” Planewave CDK telescope by Mike Selby and me. This is a combination of the data processed by me with help of some new techniques from Mike. We have started to collaborate to see what we can accomplish.

Bottom image is from jsut the 24” CDK.

NGC 1792 - A Starburst Spiral Galaxy
There are very few images of this wonderful galaxy to date by amateur astronomers, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.
NGC 1792 is in the southern constellation of Columba. It was discovered by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop on October 4, 1826.
NGC 1792’s appearance is quite energetic looking, due to the rich neutral hydrogen nature of this galaxy new stars are forming quite rapidly. It’s both a spiral galaxy, and a starburst galaxy.
Stars within these starburst galaxies are forming at quite extraordinary rates. It can be more than 10 times faster in a starburst galaxy than in a galaxy like our own the Milky Way.
When galaxies have a large reservoir of gas, like NGC 1792, these short-lived starburst phases can be sparked by galactic events such as mergers and tidal interactions. One might think that these starburst galaxies would easily consume all their gas in a large forming event, However, supernova explosions and intense stellar winds produced in these powerful starbursts can inject energy into the gas and disperse it, this halts the star formation before it can completely deplete the galaxy of all its fuel.
www.hansonastronomy.com
Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile
24” PlaneWave CDK (LRGBHA)
Thank you,

Mark Hanson

The Sculptor Galaxy (also known as the Silver Coin, Silver Dollar Galaxy, NGC 253, or Caldwell 65) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. The Sculptor Galaxy is a starburst galaxy, which means that it is currently undergoing a period of intense star formation.
Explanation Via APOD: NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, but also one of the dustiest. Dubbed the Silver Coin for its appearance in small telescopes, it is more formally known as the Sculptor Galaxy for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. Discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10 million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253, pictured, is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of galaxies. In addition to its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black holes near the galaxy's center.
Taken from SWOS in El Sauce, Chile
24” PlaneWave CDK (LRGBHA) 450,180,180,180,360

NGC 4753-The Swarm

This is one of the only color amateur images so far that show it all its glory. Looks like a swarm of flying insects.

NGC 4753 is a lenticular galaxy located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. NGC 4753 was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on February 22, 1784. It is notable for having distinct dust lanes that surround its nucleus. The galaxy is a member of the Virgo II Groups, an extension of the Virgo Cluster.

The distribution of dust in NGC 4753 lies in an inclined disk wrapped several times around the nucleus. The material in the disk may have been accreted from the merger of gas rich dwarf galaxy. Over several orbital periods, the accreted material eventually smeared out into a disk. Differential precession that occurred after the accretion event caused the disk to twist. Eventually, the disk settled into a fixed orientation with respect to the galaxy. The age of the disk is estimated to be around half a billion to a billion years.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGBHA - 440,300,300,300,300

NGC 2835 is an intermediate spiral galaxy located in the constellation Hydra. It is located at a distance of circa 35 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 2835 is about 65,000 light years across. It was discovered by Wilhelm Tempel on April 13, 1884.[3] NGC 2835 is located only 18.5 degrees from the galactic plane.[4]

NGC 2835 is seen nearly face-on. The galaxy features four or five spiral arms, visible in near infrared due to their population II stars.[5] The spiral arms have also numerous HII regions and stellar associations, the larger of which are 5 arcseconds across.[4] Although the galaxy is quite symmetric, the northern arms have HII regions that appear brighter than the southern ones. Also the southern arms appear less developed in their outer parts than the north ones.[6] The star formation rate in NGC 2835 is 0.4 M☉ per year and the total stellar mass of the galaxy is low, at 7.9x109 M☉.[7] In the centre of NGC 2835 lies a supermassive black hole whose mass is estimated to be 3-10 million (106.72±0.3) M☉, based on the spiral arm pitch angle.[8]

NGC 1055 From Chile

Explanation via APOD: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bluge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGBHA - 440,300,300,300,300

NGC 7727, also known as Arp 222, is a face on spiral galaxy in Aquarius.

First discovered by William Herschel in 1785, the galaxy has numerous star streams and plumes associated with it which are probably the result of a merger with another spiral galaxy about 1 billion years ago. It may take another billion years for this merger to settle down. It was this odd shape that led to its inclusion in Arp’s catalogue of peculiar galaxies. The support for the merger scenario comes from the fact that there are two star like objects near the core of NGC 7727, one of which may be the core of the merging galaxy and the other the main core of NGC 7727.

NGC 7727 does not seem to have a large reservoir of hydrogen gas to form new stars so it is probably going to become an elliptical galaxy in the future. Images from GALEX, an ultraviolet satellite, show very little star formation going on at the current time in NGC 7727 compared to its neighbor NGC 7724.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300

NGC 1316 & 1317 Chile New

NGC 1316 is in the Fornax galaxy cluster, 60 million light-years away.

It contains a supermassive black hole at the center, helping to explain why it's the 4th brightest radio source in the sky.

NGC 1317 is the smaller galaxy just to the north.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300

NGC 7606 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Aquarius. It is located at a distance of circa 100 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 7606 is about 165,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 28, 1785. The galaxy is included in the Herschel 400 Catalogue.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300, Min each HA 300

Look at all the galaxies in this image it look as if NGC 7606 as an umbrella of galaxies coming out of its tail.

Explanation: Large galaxies grow by eating small ones. Even our own galaxy practices galactic cannibalism, absorbing small galaxies that get too close and are captured by the Milky Way's gravity. In fact, the practice is common in the universe and illustrated by this striking pair of interacting galaxies from the banks of the southern constellation Eridanus (The River). Located over 50 million light years away, the large, distorted spiral NGC 1532 is seen locked in a gravitational struggle with dwarf galaxy NGC 1531, a struggle the smaller galaxy will eventually lose. Seen edge-on, spiral NGC 1532 spans about 100,000 light-years. Nicely detailed in this sharp image, the NGC 1532/1531 pair is thought to be similar to the well-studied system of face-on spiral and small companion known as M51.

NGC 1512

NGC 1512 is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 38 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Horologium. The galaxy displays a double ring structure, with one ring around the galactic nucleus and another further out in the main disk. NGC 1512 is a member of the Dorado Group.

Lots of extended structure in this galaxy, quite interesting.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300, Min each HA 300

NGC 6872, also known as the Condor Galaxy,[3] is a large barred spiral galaxy of type SB(s)b pec in the constellation Pavo. It is 212 million light-years (65 Mpc) from Earth and is approximately five billion years old.[3] NGC 6872 is interacting with the lenticular galaxy IC 4970, which is less than one twelfth as large.[2][3] The galaxy has two elongated arms; from tip to tip, NGC 6872 measures 522,000 light-years (160,000 pc), making it one of the largest known spiral galaxies.[2][a] It was discovered on 27 June 1835 by English astronomer John Herschel.[4]

NGC 7184 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Aquarius. It is located at a distance of circa 100 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 7184 is about 175,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 28, 1783.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300, Min each HA 300

NGC 613

NGC 613 is a barred spiral galaxy located 67 million light years away in the southern constellation of Sculptor. It is a candidate outlying member of the Sculptor Group, a gravitationally-bound group of galaxies. This galaxy was discovered in 1798 by German-English astronomer William Herschel, then re-discovered and catalogued by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. It was first photographed in 1912, which revealed the spiral form of the nebula. During the twentieth century, radio telescope observations showed that a linear feature in the nucleus was a relatively strong source of radio emission.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 450,300,300,300, Min each HA 300

Explanation via AOPD: Charles Messier described the 88th entry in his 18th century catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters as a spiral nebula without stars. Of course the gorgeous M88 is now understood to be a galaxy full of stars, gas, and dust, not unlike our own Milky Way. In fact, M88 is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster some 50 million light-years away. M88's beautiful spiral arms are easy to trace in this colorful cosmic portait. The arms are lined with young blue star clusters, pink star-forming regions, and obscuring dust lanes extending from a yellowish core dominated by an older population of stars. Spiral galaxy M88 spans over 100,000 light-years.

Taken From Dark Sky New Mexico in Animas, NM. Planewave 17”

LRGB 600, 300, 300, 300 min

Explanation VIa APOD: Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo and appears as only a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight. This remarkably detailed galaxy portrait covers an area about the angular size of the full moon. In it, the giant galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms are filled with young blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star forming regions. An extended arm sweeps past a smaller satellite galaxy at the upper left. NGC 6744's galactic companion is reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 500,300,300,300, Min each

NGC 2997 is a bright, unbarred grand design spiral galaxy, located about 40 million light-years away in the southern constellation Antlia (the Air pump). It is the brightest member of a group of galaxies of the same name in the Local Supercluster of galaxies along with the Local Group.

NGC 2997 contains hundreds of billions of stars and is thought to have a mass of about 100 billion times that of our Sun, but is probably less massive than our own Milky Way Galaxy. The galaxy is speeding away from us at about 1085 kilometers per second.

With a disk that is inclined 45 degrees to our line of sight, NGC 2997 has an oval appearance. The inner disk is covered with dust lanes, silhouetted against the central part of the galaxy, which shows a high surface brightness.

Like all grand design spirals, NGC 2997 has prominent and well-defined spiral arms, which appear to originate in the yellow nucleus. These sprawling arms are peppered with bright red blobs of ionized hydrogen which are regions of star formation, where the bright blue stars are born that generate most of the light in the arms of the galaxy.

Its small nucleus, that most likely hosts a supermassive black hole, also shows an interesting structure and concentrates an older population of yellowish stars. The nucleus is surrounded by a chain of hot giant clouds of ionized hydrogen.

NGC 5068

Rarely Imaged NGC 5068 is a field barred spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation. At the center of NGC 5068 is a supermassive black hole whose mass controls the velocity dispersion of the inner stars. The bar (or bar structure) in the bulge (or center) of the galaxy is a sign that it is reaching its full maturity as a galaxy. On average, these barred spiral galaxies are supposed to be two billion years old, the bulge being the oldest and the youngest part being the arms of the galaxy and the outer ridge of the galaxy. One of the leading hypothesis of the arm formation supposes that the presence of density waves from the bulge caused the star formation to occur in a sort of spiral shape in the galaxy. NGC 5068 is about 6.8 million pc away from Earth and about 45,000 light years in diameter.

In the spiral galaxy photo, we can see the bar in the center where a black hole resides. This bar is evidence that the galaxy has finished its formative years, and is starting to become fully mature. You can also see the spiral arms surrounding the center bar, representing the younger stars in the galaxy. There is a high rate of star formation in this arms, making the arms clear and bright. This spiral galaxy can be compared to the Milky Way (the galaxy in which our solar system resides), which also has a barred spiral structure, with a supermassive black hole in the bulge.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGBHA - 500,300,300,300,180 Min each

Abell Galaxy Cluster 1656

Almost all observers are well aware of then Virgo cluster of galaxies. That huge swarm of over 1000 galaxies that straddles the Coma Berenices-Virgo region. However not so well known is that there is another equally large cluster in Coma Berenices known as The Coma Cluster or Abell Galaxy Cluster 1656. The main reason that this galaxy cluster is not so well known is that the cluster is nearly 10 times further away than the Virgo cluster, at a distance of over 400 million light years. This means that most of the members of the cluster are small and faint. The brightest members are the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4889 and 4874.

Telescope: Planewave 17" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount Camera: SBIG 16803

Taken at Stellar Winds Observatory, a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory in Animas, NM.

Exposure: L,R,G,B 420,280,280,280

NGC 4565

This very deep exposure of magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. This sharp, colorful image reveals the galaxy's boxy, bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565's thin galactic plane. An assortment of other background galaxies is included in the pretty field of view, with neighboring galaxy NGC 4562 at the upper right. NGC 4565 itself lies about 40 million light-years distant and spans some 100,000 light-years. Easily spotted with small telescopes, sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial masterpiece Messier missed.

Taken From Dark Sky New Mexico in Animas, NM. Planewave 17”

LRGB 1380, 440, 440, 440 min Total of 45Hours of exposure.

NGC 3521

Although it doesn’t have the same name recognition as Andromeda, the Whirlpool Galaxy or the Sombrero Galaxy, NGC 3521 (pictured below) is easily one of most stunning galaxies in the night sky.

Found about 40 million light-years from Earth toward the constellation of Leo, NGC 3521 has a somewhat obvious nickname: the Bubble Galaxy. When viewed from afar, it appears to be completely encased in a large, but faint, bubble. What looks like a second bubble also surrounds its nucleus. Astronomers believe the shell is an artifact of galaxy mergers.. namely when NGC 3521 and several smaller galaxies collided. In the immediate aftermath, a bunch of gas, dust and rogue stars were strewn all throughout space—eventually coalescing back into a familiar form (features such as halos, stellar streams and tidal tails are common in events like this).

The merger also led to the formation of many star clusters, which are pink-tinged. Those with a blue-white hue are high-mass, bright and incredibly hot. They will only live for a few hundred million years before they explode as supernovae—reseeding space with raw materials.

The first image is with No Ha and the image below that has some HA added. I am working on a deep HA image of this area. I’m positive the HA extends out further.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGBHA - 500,300,300,300,180 Min each

NGC 45 is a low surface brightness spiral galaxy in the constellation of Cetus. It was discovered on 11 November 1835 by the English astronomer John Herschel. It is a member of the Sculptor group of galaxies. It is situated about 10 degrees west of the bright galaxy NGC 253. Several fainter background galaxies are visible in the image. PGC 133664, PGC 804519, PGC 804299. and PGC 3094764.

Unlike the Milky Way, NGC 45 has no clear defined spiral arms, and its center bar nucleus is also very small and distorted. NGC 45 thus does not have a galactic habitable zone.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

LRGB - 460,300,300,300 Min each

NGC 2964,2068,2970

NGC 2964 (lower right), NGC 2968 (Center), NGC 2970 (uper left), and other more distant galaxies. 2964 and 2968 are spiral galaxies, and 2970 is an elliptical galaxy. The hazy band or plume appearing to extend between 2968 and 2970 may represent distortion due to galactic interaction, a previously dissolved galaxy, supernova remnants, or have another explanation - but it real and has been noted by others.

Telescope: Planewave 24" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount Camera: SBIG 16803

Taken at Stellar Winds Observatory, a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory in Animas, NM.

Exposure: L,R,G,B 690,225,225,225

Explanation: Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis) Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxy's two spiral arms extending from a pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance. This deep color image also shows the arms' obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars. But the star forming regions seem more concentrated along the drawn-out (right side) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result of an ancient close encounter with the smaller galaxy seen near the top left of this field of view. The two interacting galaxies are separated by about 150,000 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 2442.

Explanation: Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding. Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, very rarely collide in the course of the ponderous cataclysm that lasts for hundreds of millions of years. But the galaxies' large clouds of molecular gas and dust often do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center of the cosmic wreckage. Spanning over 500 thousand light-years, this stunning view also reveals new star clusters and matter flung far from the scene of the accident by gravitational tidal forces. The remarkable mosaicked image was constructed using data from the ground-based Subaru telescope to bring out large-scale and faint tidal streams, and Hubble Space Telescope data of extreme detail in the bright cores. The suggestive visual appearance of the extended arcing structures gives the galaxy pair its popular name - The Antennae.

NGC 908 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus. It is at a distance of 60 million light years away from Earth. NGC 908 has vigorous star formation and is a starburst galaxy. The galaxy has three-arm spiral pattern, with two arms with peculiar morphology. The central bulge of the galaxy is bright. Cluster of young stars and star forming knots can be seen in the arms. Some faint tidal tails are visible.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK from Martin Pugh’s online telescope.

LRGB - Lum-460m,Red-180m,Green-200min,BLue-220m

NGC 1052 is located at a distance of around 63 million light years from the Milky Way, and has a LINER-type active galactic nucleus which signals the intense starburst activity in the galaxy's center that were confirmed with observations with better resolution showing a number of star-forming regions and young star clusters.

NGC 1052 shows also multiple small jets emerging from its nucleus as well as a very extended disc of neutral hydrogen, far larger than the galaxy itself, all these features suggesting a gas-rich galaxy collided and merged with it 1 billion years ago producing all the above features

NGC 1052-DF2 is an ultra diffuse galaxy in the constellation Cetus, which was identified in a wide-field imaging survey of the NGC 1052 group by the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. It has been proposed that the galaxy contains little or no dark matter, the first such discovery.

Telescope: Planewave 24" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount Camera: SBIG 16803

Taken at Stellar Winds Observatory, a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory in Animas, NM.

Exposure: L,R,G,B 690,225,225,225 Ha addition to come.

Explanation: Following an ancient galaxy-galaxy collision 200 million light-years from Earth, debris from a gas-rich galaxy, NGC 5291, was flung far into intergalactic space. NGC 5291 and the likely interloper, also known as the "Seashell" galaxy, are captured near the center of this spectacular scene. The sharp, ground-based telescopic image looks toward the galaxy cluster Abell 3574 in the southern constellation Centaurus. Stretched along the 100,000 light-year long tidal tails, are clumps resembling dwarf galaxies, but lacking old stars, apparently dominated by young stars and active star forming regions. Found to be unusually rich in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, the dwarf galaxies were likely born in intergalactic space, recycling the enriched debris from NGC 5291 itself.

Data from New South Wales 17” Planewave CDK from Martin Pugh’s online telescope.

LRGB - Lum-460m,Red-280m,Green-240min,Blue-300m

NGC 1232

NGC 1232 is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 20 October 1784.

It is dominated by millions of bright stars and dark dust, in spiral arms rotating about the center. Open clusters containing bright blue stars are sprinkled along these spiral arms, with dark lanes of dense interstellar dust between. Less visible are dim normal stars and interstellar gas, producing such high mass that they dominate the dynamics of the inner galaxy. Not visible is matter of unknown form called dark matter, needed to explain the motions of the visible material in the outer galaxy. The galaxy is approximately 200,000 light-years across, in between the sizes of the Andromeda Galaxy and our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

NGC 1232 and its satellite are part of the Eridanus cluster of galaxies, along with NGC 1300.

NGC 1232A is a satellite galaxy of NGC 1232. It is thought to be the cause of unusual bending in the spiral arms. In 1988, NGC 1232A was estimated to be 68 million light-years away while NGC 1232 was estimated to be 65 million light-years away.

Data from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK from Martin Pugh’s online telescope.

LRGB - Lum-460m,Red-280m,Green-240min,Blue-300m

Explanation: NGC 134 is probably not the best known spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. Still, the tantalizing island universe is a clearly a telescopic treasure in southern skies. It shares a bright core, clumpy dust lanes, and loosely wrapped spiral arms with spiky foreground stars of the Milky Way and the more diminutive galaxy NGC 131 in this sharp cosmic vista. From a distance of about 60 million light-years, NGC 134 is seen tilted nearly edge-on. It spans some 150,000 light-years, making it even larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. NGC 134's warped disk and faint extensions give the appearance of past gravitational interactions with neighboring galaxies. Like the much closer and brighter Sculptor galaxy NGC 253, tendrils of dust appear to rise from a galactic disk sprinkled with blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions.

NGC 4273 and NGC 4281 are members of a small sub-group of the Virgo Cluster. In the image below, NGC 4273 is the face-on spiral near the centre, while NGC 4281 is the larger elliptical galaxy to the upper left. The eastern spiral arm of NGC appears to be distorted a little, probably by the gravitational pull of NGC 4277 just to its left.

Abell 2151 Galaxy Cluster

Copyright Mark Hanson

Description by Sakib Rasool

Abell 2151 is a mighty cluster of galaxies with a surplus of beautiful interacting galaxies. Interestingly its distribution is quite chaotic and lacks the typical central elliptical galaxy that is a common feature of most galaxy clusters. However the brightest galaxy is the elliptical NGC 6041.

In the grand scheme of the universe, Abell 2151 (also known as the Hercules Galaxy Cluster) is located 500 million light years away and covers an area of 6 million light years with about 200 galaxies. It is part of the Hercules Supercluster, which is part of an even larger extragalactic structure simply known as the Great Wall. This has a huge span of 500 million light years and was discovered in the 1980's by Margaret Geller and John Huchra.

One aspect of Abell 2151 that is immediately apparent is the abundance of peculiar and interacting galaxies. In fact, there are so many that a record number of four were included in the Arp Atlas, the most for any galaxy cluster. These include Arp 71 (NGC 6045), Arp 122 (NGC 6040), Arp 172 (IC 1178/81) and Arp 272 (NGC 6050/IC 1179).

NGC 6040 is an interesting pair of galaxies interacting with each other and in the process of being absorbed into the galaxy cluster, its neutral hydrogen gas has been removed through ram pressure stripping, a phenomenon that has been observed in other galaxy clusters. NGC 6050 and IC 1179 represent a titanic collision between two behemoths that have been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope, which appears to show a third member in this system.

Arguably the most distinguished member of Abell 2151 is IC 1182, a strange chaotic wreck of a galaxy that was somehow overlooked by Halton Arp. Although it is tempting to perceive the elongated blue structure as a jet launched from its core, it is in fact a tidal tail with a weaker second one near the opposing side. Another famous example of tidal tails being misconstrued as jets are the ones associated with the southern galaxy NGC 1097. In IC 1182, the longer tidal tail has a length of 205,000 light years while the smaller one is 88,000 light years long. It is very llkely its unique morphology is the result of an ongoing merger between two galaxies. Another interesting conclusion drawn from professional studies is that some of the blue knots in the large tidal tail might be in the process of forming tidal dwarf galaxies!

"Stellar Winds Observatory" a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory at Dark Sky New Mexico

Planewave 17" LRGB 500,280,280,280

NGC 3077

Copyright Mark Hanson

Description by Sakib Rasool

Towards the direction of Ursa Major in the sky, NGC 3077 is the unappreciated and forgotten third member of the M81 trio of galaxies along with M82. Consisting of chaotic and disordered structure, its appearance immediately hints at its turbulent history. A characteristic it has in common with M82 are multiple spidery tendrils of ionized hydrogen gas emanating outwards from its core. These were first discovered in 1974.

Classed as a starburst dwarf galaxy, NGC 3077 is relatively nearby at 12 million light years. A series of tidally disrupted structures with striking blue stars is debris scattered from previous gravitational encounters with the other trio members, most notably M81. This structure has been nicknamed the "Garland" by professional astronomers and was first detected in photographic plates in the 1980's. Signatures of star formation triggered by tidal interactions are present as the many HII regions interspersed within its structure and at least 36 separate HII regions have been catalogued.

Another unusual aspect of this perturbed galaxy is the subtle blue core, which is surrounded by a disk consisting of an older stellar population. Normally it is the other way round, spiral galaxies consist of a golden core with blue spiral arms. The strange distribution of stellar matter is an indicator of a massive starburst of new stars being formed near the core due to the raw material of star formation being centrally concentrated at the nucleus.

Optical images such as this one don't always show the full picture of the morphology and kinematics of galaxies and other instruments are utilised to detect different parts that belong to other areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. Observations with radio telescopes are able to map the distribution of neutral hydrogen gas (HI), which is invisible optically. Witin the past few decades, the HI gas content of the M81 trio has been studied in superb detail and consists of many streamers and bridges connecting M81 and NGC 3077 together. A huge HI tail is also associated with NGC 3077 and contains more neutral gas than the core.

"Stellar Winds Observatory" a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory at Dark Sky New Mexico

Planewave 24", LRGB-HA, 480,150,150,150,990

NGC 6217 (also known as Arp 185) is a barred spiral galaxy of only about a third the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy, located about 67.2 million light-years away from Earth in the northern constellation of Ursa Minor (the Little Bear). It is receding from us at approximately 1,362 kilometers per second.

The name “Arp 185” derives from being included in Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a catalog of 338 peculiar galaxies, drawn up by Halton Arp in the years from 1962 through 1967 and published by the California Institute of Technology. Arp 185 is on the list of the “100 Brightest Arps”, which was sorted and created by Jim Shields.

NGC 6217 has moderately-wound spiral arms, and a prominent, long and well-defined bar running across a spherical, very bright active nucleus where probably a supermassive black hole resides. Throughout the galaxy we can see narrow, filamentary dark dust lanes, blue clusters full of hot, young stars, and dozens of pink star-forming emission nebulae.

It has been characterized as a starburst galaxy, which means it is undergoing a high rate of star formation compared to a typical galaxy. It is dominated by stars less than 10 million years old, giving the galaxy a blue hue.

The cosmic scene depicted in this deep astrophoto is the region towards the elliptical galaxy NGC 5557 in the constellation of Bootes. For a long time, ellipticals were regarded as the placid endpoint of galactic evolution. However this view has been challenged by the discovery of tidal shells and plumes around a large number of elliptical galaxies in the past few decades. These extended structures convey a rich kinematical history involving mergers with other galaxies, a process commonly associated with interacting spiral galaxies.

Located at a distance of 126 million light years, NGC 5557 is enveloped by multiple shells and extremely faint tidal plumes that extend for 1.2 million light years with less than the full extent included in the field of view of this image. Professional studies have surmised the material constituting the tidal structures likely originates in a major merger with a large galaxy whose original structure has been disrupted beyond recognition. In the chaos of all this tidal disruption, the formation of so-called tidal dwarf galaxies can be triggered. At least three tidal dwarf galaxies have been discovered associated with NGC 5557 but only one is included in the field of view of this image, it is the fuzzy detached object located at the northern tip of the curved tidal stream to the south. Their discovery represent the oldest examples of their kind in the nearby universe and have an estimated age of 2-4 billion years.

Complementing this hive of activity is the interacting galaxy pair NGC 5544-5, which are also collectively known as Arp 199. NGC 5544 is the face on galaxy while NGC 5545 is the blue spiral that overlaps it. They also have a similar distance of 140 million light years. Interestingly, all three galaxies were discovered on the same night in 1785 by William Herschel.

Messier 95, also known as M95 or NGC 3351, is a barred spiral galaxy located about 33 million light-years away in the zodiac constellation Leo. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781, and catalogued by fellow French astronomer Charles Messier four days later. On 16 March 2012, a supernova was discovered in M95.

M87- Elliptical Galaxy with Jet

Explanation Via AOPD: In spiral galaxies, majestic winding arms of young stars, gas, and dust rotate in a flat disk around a bulging galactic nucleus. But elliptical galaxies seem to be simpler. Lacking gas and dust to form new stars, their randomly swarming older stars, give them an ellipsoidal (egg-like) shape. Still, elliptical galaxies can be very large. Centered in this telescopic view and over 120,000 light-years in diameter, larger than our own Milky Way, elliptical galaxy M87 (NGC 4486) is the dominant galaxy of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Some 50 million light-years away, M87 is likely home to a supermassive black hole responsible for a high-energy jet of particles emerging from the giant galaxy's central region. M87's jet is near the five o'clock position, you can click on the image for a full resolution view.

NGC 5128 - "Centaurus A"

Taken from SSRO/PROMPT/CTIO,Chile Processed by Mark Hanson

Description by "Sakib Rasooll"

This dramatic galaxy portrait depicts the disturbed and peculiar galaxy NGC 5128 in the constellation of Centaurus. The result of a merger between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, it displays a wide variety of kinematical features. It is the closest known active galaxy at 11 million light years.

The remnant of the original spiral galaxy is represented by its central dust lane highlighted along its edges with the signatures of star formation such as blue star clusters and red emission nebulae. Many cosmic collisions between galaxies trigger a massive starburst of starforming activity as the neutral gas reservoir is increased and pressure and gravity compress gas clouds into active sites of starbirth. The original collision has also strewn small dust globules across the disk of the galaxy.

This intergalactic encounter between two galaxies has also deformed the structure of the original elliptical galaxy and faint tidal shells envelop the galaxy. They were originally discovered by the astronomers David Malin and David Carter in the 1970's through special photographic amplification techniques. Their discovery prompted the publication of a catalogue of shell elliptical galaxies in 1983 and there are a few hundred known to belong to this category. Images with a wider field of view than this show multiple interlocking shells that extend even further. The origin of these shells are minor mergers with multiple smaller galaxies and are created by the disruption of orbits of captured stars.

NGC 5128 is also known as Centaurus A and this particular naming scheme denotes the first radio source to be discovered in a particular constellation. As it has been detected by astronomers in observations made with radio telescopes, it belongs to another category of radio galaxies. Radio galaxies are so-called as they radiate more emission in radio than in optical. They are a type of active galactic nucleus (usually abbreviated to AGN). As the name suggests, galaxies that feature an AGN have an energetic nuclear region centered around a supermassive black hole.

Although not immediately apparent, the AGN activity in Centaurus A is represented optically by a long filamentary jet, which can be seen north of the core. The jet arises from an outflow of gas that has built up in the accretion disk surrounding the supermassive black hole and its narrow appearance is the product of interacting magnetic fields associated with the black hole. This jet appears as an impressive bipolar outflow in x-ray and radio images.

Taken from SSRO/PROMPT/CTIO,Chile Processed by Mark Hanson

"One of the lesser appreciated treasures in the Messier catalogue is the spiral galaxy M96. Its spiral arms are punctuated with the red glow of hydrogen gas concentated in emission nebulae and HII regions, the birthplaces of new stars. Many dust lanes swirl around its core with the distribution of its gas and dust being asymmetrical as well as the core region being placed off-centre.

The entire galaxy spans 100,000 light years making it about the same size as the Milky Way at a close distance of 35 million light years. The surrounding region is filled with a wide variety of background galaxies much further away. The most striking of these is the edge on galaxy 2MFGC 8391, which is perfectly positioned to share the line of sight to create the illusion it is part of the structure of M96."

M83, aka NGC 5236, aka the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, is located in Hydra, and about 12 million lightyears distant. It's size and brightness make it visible in binoculars.

This image contains 42 hours of data from CTIO in Chile, processed in Photoshop and PixInsight.

M91

Messier 91 (also known as NGC 4548 or M91)[3][4] is a barred spiral galaxy located in the Coma Berenices constellation and is part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. M91 is about 63 million light-years away from the earth. It was the last of a group of eight nebulae discovered by Charles Messier in 1781.

Originally M91 was a missing Messier object in the catalogue as the result of a bookkeeping mistake by Messier. It was not until 1969 that amateur astronomer William C. Williams[3]

NGC 3642 is a spiral galaxy in constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy has a low-ionization nuclear emission-line region. It is located at a distance of circa 30 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 3642 is about 50,000 light years across. The galaxy is characterised by an outer pseudoring, which was probably formed after the accretion of gas rich dwarf galaxy.[2]

Contents

1 Structure

2 Nearby galaxies

3 References

4 External links

Structure

NGC 3642 is a spiral galaxy without bar.[2] In the nucleus there is a supermassive black hole with estimated mass 26-31 millions M⊙, based on the intrinsic velocity dispersion as measured by the Hubble Space Telescope,[3] or 15 millions M⊙, based on the bulge luminosities in near-infrared Ks-band.[4]

Around the nucleus, an one-armed spiral forms a ring, and it is possible that it leads material towards the nucleus. The nucleus surrounded by an inner flocculent spiral. The outer part of the spiral forms a pseudoring that extents for about half a circle. The outer part of the spiral is warped, while its main part features an ordinary differentially rotating disk. The HI gas is also warped and extents more in the western side.[2]

"Floating in the serenity of the universe like a cosmic ammonite shell, NGC 2655 is an impressive example of a lenticular galaxy. Located 60 million light years away towards the constellation of Camelopardalis, its series of outer shell structures and faint tidal loops are nicely complemented by internal dust lanes near its core.

Its panoply of morphological kinematics are indicative of a merger between two galaxies in the past, an intergalactic event that is now known to be a common feature of the evolution of galaxies. Other signatures of a past merger that aren't apparent to the eye are vast clouds of neutral hydrogen surrounding the galaxy that were uncovered in observations made using radio telescopes by professional astronomers.

The unusual appearance of NGC 2655 brought it to the attention of the famous astronomer Halton Arp who added it to his atlas of peculiar galaxies under Arp 225. Another distinction is that the core is very luminous, which means that NGC 2655 belongs to the category of active galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies, which were named after the astronomer Karl Seyfert. The luminosity of Seyfert galaxies is thought to derive from a transfer of matter onto an accretion disk around a supermassive black hole.

NGC 2655 is the brightest member of a small group of galaxies that also includes NGC 2715 (not visible in image). The diameter of NGC 2655 is approximately 200,000 light years but the envelope of neutral hydrogen gas discovered in the 1980's is about 500,000 light years."

aken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8, Apogee U16M High Cooling
Luminance 360, Red 180, Green 140, Blue 180
Calibrated,combined in CCD Stack all other processing done using PS5.


The starburst galaxy NGC 2782 lies about 110 million light years away toward the Lynx constellation. This shows the result when two galaxies of unequal mass collided about 200 million years ago. Their gravitational pull ripped out two tails of debris with very different properties.

The optically bright eastern tail has some neutral hydrogen gas and molecular gas at the base of the tail, and an optically bright, but gas-poor concentration at the end of the tail. The optically faint western tail is rich in neutral hydrogen gas, but has no molecular gas, yet astronomers have recently found blue star clusters younger than 100 million years along both tails, indicating that those stars formed within both tails after the galaxy collision occurred.


Current star-formation theory suggests that star clusters are formed from the collapse of giant molecular gas clouds, but if this were the case, astronomers would expect to see remnants of the molecular gas which helped give birth to the stars in both of the tails of NGC 2782.

Finding unexpected young star clusters in the western tail could help explain why stars form in other places where there is little molecular gas, like the outer edges of the Milky Way galaxy or in the debris of other galaxy collisions.

Taken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8, Apogee U16M High Cooling
Luminance 390, Red 140, Green 140, Blue 140,
Calibrated,combined in CCD Stack all other processing done using PS5.

The dwarf galaxy NGC 4214 is ablaze with young stars and gas clouds. Located around 10 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs), the galaxy's close proximity, combined with the wide variety of evolutionary stages among the stars, make it an ideal laboratory to research the triggers of star formation and evolution.

NGC 2146 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis. The most distinctive feature is the dusty spiral arm that has looped in front of the galaxy's core as seen from our perspective. The forces required to pull this structure out of its natural shape and twist it up to 45 degrees are colossal. The most likely explanation is that a neighboring galaxy is gravitationally distorting the orbits of many of NGC 2146's stars. It is probable that we are currently witnessing the end stages of a process that has been occurring for tens of millions of years.

NCG 2146 is undergoing intense bouts of star formation, to such an extent that it is referred to as a starburst galaxy. This is a common state for barred spirals, but the extra gravitational disruption that NGC 2146 is enduring no doubt exacerbates the situation, compressing hydrogen-rich nebulas and triggering stellar birth.

Three Giant Leaps

Image Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson

Description by Brian Ottum

Three different objects in this image demonstrate the immensity of the known universe. The bright star is 16 Piscium, located just 100 light-years from Earth, within our home Milky Way galaxy.

The pair of interacting galaxies (Arp 284) are a thousand times further away than the bright star, 100 million light-years from Earth.

Finally, the tiny blue quasar's (B2333+019A) & (B2334+019A) are a hundred times further away than the pair of galaxies at 10 and 11 billion light-years from Earth.

The 3 different objects demonstrate the immense power of gravity.

1. The bright star creates light through gravity-generated fusion.

2. Gravity is pulling the pair of galaxies Arp 284 also known as (NGC 7714 and NGC 7715) toward each other, gradually tearing them apart in the process.

3. Finally, 2 separate super massive black holes have so much gravitational pull that it is vacuuming up its host galaxy, allowing only an extremely bright jet of light (the 2 quasars) to escape and be blasted towards Earth.

We are seeing light that started its journey when the universe was relatively young at just 3 billion years old.

"Slicing through the dark cold depths of space towards the constellation of Draco, the knife edge disk of the Splinter Galaxy is depicted in this impressively deep image. Otherwise catalogued as NGC 5907, rusty coloured dust lanes near the centre compete with a stainless steel blue outer edge composed of younger stars. This part also features a lower amount of dust obscuration.

The beauty of long exposure images taken with remote observatories under dark skies elucidate incredibly low surface brightness tidal streams. Originally discovered by a team of professional astronomers in 1998, it wasn't until the pioneering work of David Martinez-Delgado and his crack squad of amateur astro-detectives (of which a certain Mark Hanson is a member) that it was conclusively confirmed as a true definite structure around the galaxy.

Like the myriad of clues left behind at a crime scene, professional astronomers can reconstruct the history of an intergalactic murder mystery but this time involving a huge galaxy like NGC 5907 and a smaller companion galaxy that is disrupted and ultimately destroyed. The tidal stream that is recovered in deep optical images could be thought of as the ghost of the previous satellite galaxy. This structure is the product of the effect of the gravity of the larger galaxy and the decay of the orbit of the smaller galaxy and it leaves behind a trail of stars ripped from it that trace its disrupted orbit around the larger galaxy. This tidal stream has an estimated size of 150,000 light years."

"This stunning image depicts the dynamic and dramatic centre of the Virgo Cluster. At a distance of approximately 50 million light years, it is the closest galaxy cluster to Earth and is dominated by the large elliptical galaxies M86 and M84.

However what makes this image special is the addition of 30 hours of narrowband Ha exposures that illuminate blazing filaments of gas that emit in the hydrogen alpha line! These are the product of a collision between M86 and the blue peculiar deformed spiral galaxy NGC 4438. With a staggering length of 400,000 light years, they signify the tempestuous relationship between interacting galaxies at the heart of galaxy clusters.

NGC 4438 is also interacting with its elliptical companion NGC 4435 and both are collectively catalogued as Arp 120 in the Arp Atlas of peculiar galaxies. Another sign of peculiarity is a rarely seen tidal tail extending from NGC 4435. Another point of interest is a swarm of low surface brightness dwarf galaxies enveloping M86. These are currently being analysed by professional astronomers to help gain insight into the nature of the elusive dark matter purported to exist within the framework of cosmological models."

Explanation Via APOD: A remarkable telescopic composition in yellow and blue, this scene features a trio of interacting galaxies almost 90 million light-years away, toward the constellation Virgo. On the left, two, spiky, foreground Milky Way stars echo the trio galaxy hues, a reminder that stars in our own galaxy are like those in the distant island universes. Predominately yellow, with sweeping spiral arms and dust lanes, NGC 5566 is enormous, about 150,000 light-years across. Just below it lies small, blue NGC 5569. Near center, the third galaxy, NGC 5560, is multicolored and apparently stretched and distorted by its interaction with NGC 5566. The galaxy trio is also included in Halton Arp's 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 286. Of course, such cosmic interactions are now appreciated as a common part of the evolution of galaxies.

"Belonging to the class of Magellanic type irregular galaxy, NGC 4449 is a small but lovely cosmic denizen of the constellation Canes Venatici. It is very close (in astronomical terms) at 12.5 million light years.

Blazing across its structure is a starburst of young blue stars and active red nebulae forming new stars at a (fast) and furious pace! Detailed analysis of the starburst has determined that it started 500 million years ago. For many years, it was hypothesized that the starburst observed in NGC 4449 was triggered by an interaction with another galaxy.

Enter astronomer extraordinaire David Martinez-Delgado and his pro-am collaboration project to document tidal streams in nearby galaxies. His tidal stream survey has uncovered previously unknown tidal streams in many galaxies. Utilizing a group of amateur astrophotographers led by Jay GaBany with a worldwide network of telescopes and remote observatories, it has been possible to obtain very long exposures that would not normally be possible with professional observatories due to limitations imposed by time allocation constraints. The group of amateur astrophotographers includes many famous people such as Ken Crawford, Adam Block, Fabian Neyer, a certain Mark Hanson and many others.

Deep images taken by the tidal stream survey group uncovered an extremely faint tidal stream, which is the remnant of a former dwarf companion. Special image processing techniques combined with very long exposures are able to reveal very faint features that would not normally be visible. This stream can be seen as the ghostly elongated tidal feature to the south of NGC 4449. It was first discovered in 2007 by Igor Karachentsev and followed up for a definitive detection by the tidal stream survey team. The stream has a size of approximately 23,000 x 5000 light years.

The accretion of smaller galaxies is a major contributing factor to galaxy assembly and is a major topic of research in astrophysics. Revealing the dim past of galaxies can help gain insight to their future and address related topics such as dark matter distribution."

Messier 49 in Virgo

"M49 is a large elliptical galaxy with a tenuous diffuse tidal shell structure. With a magnitude of 9, it is easily observable by visual observers. It is located 56 million light years away and forms a magnificent if unappreciated galaxy group.

One of the many members of the Virgo Cluster, M49 is a giant elliptical galaxy with a size of 157,000 light years. It is home to an estimated 6000 globular clusters, which seem to be found in greater abundance in elliptical galaxies.

M49 is interacting with the blue dwarf galaxy UGC 7636 below and to the left of it. This is visually illustrated by a diffuse tidal plume to the north of it stretching towards the direction of M49. The tidal plume has a size of approximately 100,000 x 20,000 light years. M49 was also included by the late Halton Arp in his Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 134."

Description and Labeled version by "Sakib Rasool"

NGC 4236 (also known as Caldwell 3)

Is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Draco.

The galaxy is a member of the M81 Group, a group of galaxies located at a distance of approximately 11.7 light years

The group also contains the spiral galaxy Messier 81 and the starburst galaxy Messier 82.

"Stellar Winds Observatory" a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory at Dark Sky New Mexico

Planewave  17"

SBIG 16803

Planewave H200

LRGB, 780,300,300,320 (also known as Caldwell 3)

Is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Draco.

The galaxy is a member of the M81 Group, a group of galaxies located at a distance of approximately 11.7 light years

The group also contains the spiral galaxy Messier 81 and the starburst galaxy Messier 82.

"Stellar Winds Observatory" a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory at Dark Sky New Mexico

Planewave  17"

SBIG 16803

Planewave H200

LRGB, 780,300,300,320

Here is an image of  Messier 85 (also known as M85 or NGC 4382 ) is a lenticular galaxy, or elliptical galaxy, in the Coma Berenices constellation. It is 60 million light-years away, and it is estimated to be 125,000 light-years across.

M85 is extremely poor in neutral hydrogen and has a very complex outer structure with shells and ripples that are thought to have been caused by a merger with another galaxy that took place between 4 and 7 billion years ago. It's still interacting with the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 4394, and a small elliptical galaxy called MCG 3-32-38.

"This dramatic deep two frame mosaic depicts a rarely photographed region of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Both galaxies were included by Charles Messier in his 18th century collection of objects that are not comets. The one on the right is M89 and the one on the left is M90, both are between 50 and 60 million light years away along with the small companion of M90, IC 3583.

This image perfectly illustrates the influence of environment on galaxy evolution. M90 was considered a placid serene galaxy with very little activity and a low star formation rate. Recent studies by professional astronomers show it to be experiencing ram pressure stripping, a phenomenon that is known to affect many galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and other galaxy clusters. Galaxy cluster environments contain lots of hot gas visible in x-rays known as the intracluster medium (ICM). The movement of a galaxy through the ICM creates a "wind" that exerts pressure that strips gas away from the galaxy due to it being gravitationally bound with less strength than the surrounding forces. As M90 has fallen through the Virgo Cluster toward its center, cold neutral gas has been stripped away from it thereby quenching any future star formation. The effects of ram pressure stripping on M90 are dramatically illustrated with low surface brightness tails of ionized gas revealed with deep narrowband Ha exposures, which were discovered in 2016. They have a length of 472,000 light years and currently it is unclear what the ionizing mechanism is.

M89 is an unusual elliptical galaxy with a series of tidal shells and plumes revealed with long exposures. M89 was one of the first elliptical galaxies where a series of outer shells was identified in 1979 by the esteemed astronomer David Malin. This discovery was made possible through innovative techniques developed by David Malin involving enhancement and amplification of faint features on photographic plates and led to the publication of a catalogue of shell elliptical galaxies. The linear feature was first reported in 1979 to be a jet from the galaxy core but is actually a well placed tidal stream structure. The origin of the shells is not conclusive but the explanation most commonly invoked for this type of galaxy are multiple mergers with previous companion galaxies. M89 is also experiencing gas stripping but this is only observable in x-rays. Images taken with the Chandra telescope show a tail of gas, these features are a result of it also falling into the Virgo Cluster."

This rarely photographed region of Virgo contains a vast variety of galaxies. Near the centre is a relatively serene spiral galaxy pair that is collectively known as NGC 4411. Much more striking is the connected system of interacting galaxies to the north, which are collectively catalogued as NGC 4410. Much further in the distance are a few galaxy clusters, most notably Abell 1541 near the bottom left corner. Less apparent and more pervasive are hundreds of fuzzy dots in the background, these are all distant galaxies billions of light years away!

NGC 4410 is a group of interacting galaxies connected by tidal bridges and in addition to this also exhibits tidal tails and plumes. The whole menagerie of morphological features is due to the effect of gravitational interaction between the various galaxies due to their proximity to each other. This group in total contains 12 members and is located 316 million light years away and in the future is likely to merge into a single elliptical galaxy. Interestingly, NGC 4411 is only a visual pair with the galaxy on the left being 91 million light years away while the one on the right is closer with a distance of 49 million light years. Both are members of the Virgo Cluster.

NGC 1073 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus. It probably has an H II nucleus.[2][3] NGC 1073 is about 55 million light years from Earth. NGC 1073 is about 80,000 light years across. NGC 1073 can be viewed with a mid-sized telescope and is found in the Cetus constellation, also called the Sea Monster. NGC 1073 is a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way; unlike the Milky Way, however, NGC 1073 does not have well formed symmetrical arms and the center bar is larger.[4]

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way. The colorful stars in this cosmic close-up of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bluge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

Face-on spiral galaxy M77 lies a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatic constellation Cetus. Also known as NGC 1068, its very bright core is well studied by astronomers exploring the mysteries of super massive black holes in active galaxies. While M77 is also seen at x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, and radio wavelengths, this visible light image highlights another remarkable aspect of the galaxy. In the picture it shows outer faint details, following spiral arms and structures that reach far beyond the galaxy's brighter central regions. Including the fainter outskirts, the galaxy's diameter is well over 100 thousand light-years at M77's estimated distance, making it larger than our own spiral Milky Way.

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way. The colorful stars in this cosmic close-up of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bluge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

Explanation: This might resemble a fried egg you've had for breakfast, but it's actually much larger. In fact, ringed by blue-tinted star forming regions and faintly visible spiral arms, the yolk-yellow center of this face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 7742, is about 3,000 light-years across. About 72 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7742 is known to be a Seyfert galaxy - a type of active spiral galaxy with a center or nucleus which is very bright at visible wavelengths. Across the spectrum, the tremendous brightness of Seyferts can change over periods of just days to months and galaxies like NGC 7742 are suspected of harboring massive black holes at their cores.

NGC 1275 (also known as Perseus A or Caldwell 24)

The Perseus Cluster (Abell 426), located 237 million light-years away in the constellation of Perseus, contains thousands of galaxies immersed in a vast cloud of multi-million degree gas. Near the cluster center is the cluster’s dominant galaxy NGC 1275 (also known as Perseus A).

The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Recently it was estimated to be 23 ± 4 million light-years from the Milky Way,but different methods yield distances between 15 and 35 million light-years. Messier 51 is one of the best known galaxies in the sky. The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may even be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy is also a popular target for professional astronomers, who study it to further understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.

"Located south of the Whirlpool Galaxy in the sky, NGC 5198 is a seemingly ordinary elliptical galaxy that was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel. Deep images however reveal a recently discovered tidal tail in addition to an outer tidal shell. The length of the tidal tail is approximately 300,000 light years and is the remains of a small galaxy that has been absorbed by NGC 5198. The linear nature of the tidal tail is indicative of a recent collision with a previous companion or satellite galaxy, which has been tidally disrupted by the larger galaxy."

The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Recently it was estimated to be 23 ± 4 million light-years from the Milky Way,but different methods yield distances between 15 and 35 million light-years. Messier 51 is one of the best known galaxies in the sky. The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may even be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy is also a popular target for professional astronomers, who study it to further understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.

"Located south of the Whirlpool Galaxy in the sky, NGC 5198 is a seemingly ordinary elliptical galaxy that was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel. Deep images however reveal a recently discovered tidal tail in addition to an outer tidal shell. The length of the tidal tail is approximately 300,000 light years and is the remains of a small galaxy that has been absorbed by NGC 5198. The linear nature of the tidal tail is indicative of a recent collision with a previous companion or satellite galaxy, which has been tidally disrupted by the larger galaxy."

This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4151 (Left), located at a distance of about 45 million light years from us. NGC 4151 is a Seyfert galaxy and hosts one of the brightest active galactic nuclei (AGN) known at X-ray wavelengths. The supermassive black hole lying at the centre of NGC 4151 has a mass of about 50 million solar masses.

NGC 4145 (Right) is around 44 million light years away and is part of the Ursa Major cluster of galaxies. This cluster contains many bright spirals for which NGC 4145 is a member. However this galaxy is considered relatively "anemic" due to the fact that unlike most spiral galaxies it does not have a lot of star formation taking place. While the spiral arms of this galaxy are punctuated by some activity, the rest of the galaxy is quite quiet. Indeed astronomers suggest that a galaxy like this will soon (in galactic terms) lose the impetus to form stars and settle down to become a lenticular galaxy. Interestingly this galaxy is interacting with another (NGC 4151). This may help maintain the star formation in NGC 4145. In fact close inspection of the nucleus of NGC 4145 seems to indicate that the tug of NGC 4151 has displaced it from its position in the center of NGC 4145.

This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4151 (Left), located at a distance of about 45 million light years from us. NGC 4151 is a Seyfert galaxy and hosts one of the brightest active galactic nuclei (AGN) known at X-ray wavelengths. The supermassive black hole lying at the centre of NGC 4151 has a mass of about 50 million solar masses.

NGC 4145 (Right) is around 44 million light years away and is part of the Ursa Major cluster of galaxies. This cluster contains many bright spirals for which NGC 4145 is a member. However this galaxy is considered relatively "anemic" due to the fact that unlike most spiral galaxies it does not have a lot of star formation taking place. While the spiral arms of this galaxy are punctuated by some activity, the rest of the galaxy is quite quiet. Indeed astronomers suggest that a galaxy like this will soon (in galactic terms) lose the impetus to form stars and settle down to become a lenticular galaxy. Interestingly this galaxy is interacting with another (NGC 4151). This may help maintain the star formation in NGC 4145. In fact close inspection of the nucleus of NGC 4145 seems to indicate that the tug of NGC 4151 has displaced it from its position in the center of NGC 4145.

M89 with tidal tail and extended Halos

How do we get this text to show not really sure need to figure it out.

Arp 120, The Eyes Galaxies, NGC 4435 and NGC 4438

NGC 3521

NGC 3521 With deep luminance from 14.5"RCOS from Rancho Hidalgo, NM

NGC 891

Taken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8, Apogee U16M High Cooling
Luminance 420, Red 165, Green 165, Blue 165
Calibrated,combined in CCD Stack all other processing done using PS5.


This spiral galaxy spans about 100 thousand light-years and is seen almost exactly edge-on from our perspective. In fact, about 30 million light-years distant in the constellation Andromeda, NGC 891 looks a lot like our Milky Way. At first glance, it has a flat, thin, galactic disk and a central bulge cut along the middle by regions of dark obscuring dust. The combined image data also reveal the galaxy's young blue star clusters and telltale pinkish star forming regions. And remarkably apparent in NGC 891's edge-on presentation are filaments of dust that extend hundreds of light-years above and below the center line. The dust has likely been blown out of the disk by supernova explosions or intense star formation activity. Faint neighboring galaxies can also be seen near this galaxy's disk.

IC 1613 Dwarf Galaxy in Cetus

Taken from DGRO Rancho Hidalgo Animas, New Mexico
14.5" RCOS F8, Apogee U16M High Cooling
Luminance 320, Red 180, Green 180, Blue 180, HA 300
Calibrated,combined in CCD Stack all other processing done using PS5.

IC 1613 (Caldwell 51) is a dwarf irregular galaxy located in the constellation Cetus and was discovered by Max Wolf in 1906. This galaxy is a member of the Local Group of galaxies and has a morphological classification of IBm (Irregular Barred - Magellanic type). Irregular galaxies are those that don't fit into the Hubble sequence of galaxy classification and often have chaotic structure, lack spiral arms and no nuclear bulge. It's believed that these galaxies are shaped so because of gravitational influences from passing galaxies or larger neighboring ones.
IC1613 has a very low surface brightness and so little dust that background galaxies can been seen behind it in this image. The center has a visible bar like structure and overall has several star forming regions as evident by the red HIII regions surrounding hot blue O/B stars. Star ages range from 20 million to 10 billion years old.