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Instrument |
12.5" RCOS @
~f/9 (2880 mm fl) 0.64 arcsec / pixel. The Zoomify image scale
is 0.85 to 3.58 arcsec / pixel. |
|
Mount |
Paramount ME |
|
Camera |
SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Gen II Filters |
|
Acquisition Data |
3/2/2012 to 3/28/2012 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3
& CCDSoft. AOL guided |
|
Exposure |
Lum 330 min. (11
x 30 min. bin 1x1 - best of 18)
Ha
540 min. (18 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
RGB 360 min. (
8 x 15 min. each, bin 2x2) |
|
Software |
-
CCDSoft, CCDStack,
Photoshop CS3 w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Noel Carboni's actions.
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eXcalibrator v3.0 (g-r) color balancing, using 67 stars
from the SDSS-DR7 database.
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PixFix32 (pre-beta) to
repair column defects.
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CCDStack to calibrate,
register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub exposures,
selective deconvolution and
the RGB color image.
-
PhotoShop for adding
the Ha data to the Luminance and RGB data,
none-linear stretching
and L(ha)R(ha)GB combine.
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Comment |
North is to the top.
M82, the Cigar Galaxy, was stirred up by a recent pass near the
large spiral galaxy M81. However, this doesn't fully explain the
source of the red-glowing outwardly expanding gas. Recent evidence
indicates that this gas is being driven out by the combined emerging
particle winds of many stars. This image highlights a specific color
of red light strongly emitted by ionized hydrogen gas, showing
detailed filaments of this gas. The filaments extend for over 10,000
light years. The 12-million light-year distant Cigar Galaxy is the
brightest galaxy in the sky in infrared light, and can be seen in
visible light with a small telescope towards the constellation of
Ursa Major.
Source:
NASA APOD
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