The Topsy Turvey Galaxy--NGC 1313

[Russ.Carpenter]

This may be my favorite galaxy in the Southern Hemisphere. Even for galaxies, life can be hard! The full res version can be seen here: https://www.astrobin.com/bfzq41/?nc=user The Decon tool in StarTools is really good at bringing out tiny details, which can be more easily seen in full res.

This image and text were uploaded to Astrobin this morning.

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The Topsy Turvy Galaxy—NGC 1313

The Topsy Turvy is a spectacular example of galactic collision. NGC 1313 began as a barred spiral galaxy, but its violent encounter with another galaxy completely rearranged its structure. That collision also created scattered areas of intense star formation. Topsy Turvy hosts a rare celestial object—an intermediate mass black hole.

NGC 1313 is surrounded by larges areas of faint dust. In this image I chose not to include the dust, but instead to concentrate on the dramatic interior features of the galaxy.

This is an RGB image processed with a synthetic luminance. It is a complete reprocessing of data collected in January, 2019.

Tech Notes for ASA 500/3.6:
ASA Newtonian, 500 mm aperture, 1900mm focal length, F3.6
FLI Proline 16803, 9 mm pixel, 4096 X 4096
ASA DDM85 equatorial mount
Processing with PixInsight, StarTools, and Affinity Photo