NGC 3109 Ha Revealed

This Magellanic-type galaxy contains stars of various ages, with its halo comprising incredibly old stars. Extracting the magnificent Ha emission of this wonderful galaxy which is hidden due to the significant obscuration by these stars. I aimed to highlight the HA in this image. It was challenging to reveal, but it was worth the effort.

NGC 3109 is classified as a Magellanic type irregular galaxy around 4.5 million light years from Earth, but it may actually be a small spiral galaxy. If it is a spiral galaxy, it would be the smallest in the Local Group. NGC 3109 has a mass of about 2.3×10 ^9 times the mass of our Sun, of which 20% is in the form of neutral hydrogen. The galaxy is oriented edge-on from our point of view, and but may contain a disk and a halo. The disk appears to be composed of stars of all ages, whereas the halo contains only very old and metal-poor stars. There is no sign of a galactic nucleus.

From measurements of the neutral atomic hydrogen in the galaxy, it has been found that the disk of NGC 3109 is warped. The warp has the same radial velocity as gas in the Antlia Dwarf galaxy, Astronomers believe that the two galaxies had a close encounter around one billion years ago.

Planewave 24" with Moravian C5 camera taken at Obstech, Chile

LRGB-Ha - Taken between 1-25/2-1-25, 50x300 RGB, 73x600Lum, 52x900 HA

SWOS group: Mazlin, Parker, Forman, Hanson

Image Processing: Hanson

Enjoy, Mark

 NGC 3109

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

Image Processing: Mark Hanson.  Data: Mike Selby

Also other versions with data from from El Sauce, Chile 17” Planewave CDK

Here are 3 versions, Newest at the top.