Now here's a far away thing. NGC 5701. I heard this 'little' thing had a detached ring around it so I thought I'd add it to my itenerary one night imaging at the observatory. I got 13 pics of 30 seconds each at f/3 on the 20", and appropriate darks. I later applied some previously taken flats, which haven't done a perfect job. You can see a couple of dust doughnuts as I've had to ramp up the contrast of the shadows to show the faint ring around this galaxy. When I first looked at the images on my camera, I was a little disappointed to see just a normal spindle-like shape, but an interesting bar across the middle nevertheless. There was no evidence of a ring among the light pollution. Even after stacking the images, it had to be teased out in the process of processing, so I'm presenting this image with camera readout stripes and 'noise' across it just so you can see this fascinating feature. The galaxy is classified as an SBOa-R (R for ring), and the central core comprises of some tightly wound spiral arms. The ring is just connected to the central part of the galaxy at one point, not easy to see in this picture. This galaxy would be an ideal candidate for the Atik when it is higher.
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Ring galaxy
Now here's a far away thing. NGC 5701. I heard this 'little' thing had a detached ring around it so I thought I'd add it to my itenerary one night imaging at the observatory. I got 13 pics of 30 seconds each at f/3 on the 20", and appropriate darks. I later applied some previously taken flats, which haven't done a perfect job. You can see a couple of dust doughnuts as I've had to ramp up the contrast of the shadows to show the faint ring around this galaxy. When I first looked at the images on my camera, I was a little disappointed to see just a normal spindle-like shape, but an interesting bar across the middle nevertheless. There was no evidence of a ring among the light pollution. Even after stacking the images, it had to be teased out in the process of processing, so I'm presenting this image with camera readout stripes and 'noise' across it just so you can see this fascinating feature. The galaxy is classified as an SBOa-R (R for ring), and the central core comprises of some tightly wound spiral arms. The ring is just connected to the central part of the galaxy at one point, not easy to see in this picture. This galaxy would be an ideal candidate for the Atik when it is higher.
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