|
|
Click the image for a full size
view.
| Roll the cursor in
and out of the above image, to see galaxies identified from the
NED
database. In this color inverted, partial view, faint galaxies at
magnitude 22.5 are easily visible... with the faintest visible found
at 23.7. Within the entire field of view, there are about 2,050 galaxies at
magnitude 22.5 or brighter. |
|
Instrument |
12.5" RCOS @
~f/9 (2880 mm fl) at 1.28 arcsec / pixel. |
|
Mount |
Paramount ME |
|
Camera |
SBIG STL-11000 w/
internal filter wheel, AstroDon Gen-1 Filters |
|
Acquisition Data |
2/13/2010
to 2/23/2010 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot3 & CCDSoft. |
|
Exposure |
Lum 330 min. (22
x 15 min. bin 2x2)
RGB 225 min. ( 5
x 15 min. bin 2x2, each) |
|
Software & Processing Notes |
-
CCDSoft, CCDStack,
Photoshop CS6, PixInsight and Noel Carboni's actions.
-
eXcalibrator v4.1
for (g:r) color balancing, using 16 stars from the SDSS-DR9
database.
-
CCDBand-Aid to repair
Kodak KAI-11000M vertical bars.
-
CCDStack to
calibrate, register, normalize, data reject, combine the sub
exposures, create the RGB image and selective luminance Maximum
Entropy deconvolution.
-
PixInsight for
gradient removal, initial non-linear stretching and selective
use of HDRMultiscaleTrans to enhance the detail in the center of
the galaxies.
-
PhotoShop for the
LRGB combine & final touch-up.
-
Noiseware 5, a
PhotoShop plug-in.
|
|
Comment |
North is to the
top.
This beautiful trio of
galaxies is in the area of the constellation Coma Berenices. NGC
4725 (center) and NGC 4747 (upper left) are neighbors at a distance
of 45 to 57 million and 40 to 56 million light-yrs respectively.
Galaxy NGC 4712, at the lower right, is in the background... about
207 million light-years away.
Tidal interaction with supergiant spiral NGC 4725, is the generally
accepted cause for the severe distortion of the smaller NGC 4747
galaxy.
This interaction has given NGC 4747 three tidal tails, two large at
the upper left and a smaller one at the opposite end of the galaxy.
The direction of these three plums trace directly towards NGC
4725.
NGC 4725 has its own peculiarities. While most spiral galaxies have
two or more arms, NGC 4725 seems to have only one.
|
|
