StarTools

This month's BDSI challenge thread target - first one in a while that fit my weather and interests.

AT130EDT, L3 uv/ir-cut, Risingcam IMX571c, CEM40, KStars/Ekos, PHD2. 390x120s subs at HCG, dithered every sub and registered with the CFA drizzle option in Siril 1.3.2alpha-dev.

I stacked exactly 13 hours of what I collected - there were a few hours of crummy seeing that did not make the cut, and even so I included some subs that I would have preferred to leave on the cutting room floor.

With these "small" galaxies, I always get at least as excited by the more distant background galaxies, which explains the odd framing of the main target up in the corner. To the far right is Arp 145, a really cool pair of interacting galaxies. Lower center are quite a few galaxies, many in the 200-300 Mly distance range. The two spiral in the lower-center are NGC 906 and NGC 914. The interesting one-armed spiral to the left of the red / orange star in the middle is PCG 9101, which I believe is estimated to be nearly 600Mly away.

Why, one might ask, is NGC 891 called the Outer Limits Galaxy? See here: https://youtu.be/v6FmpX3oePo?feature=shared

abin link for the image: https://astrob.in/ow1xz0/0/

A real nice image Ron. Indeed the many tiny galaxies are a beauty and sometimes it is amazing how many one can catch in an image...

Wonderful image of a porthole into the Universe
So many distinct and faint galaxies from corner to corner
Certainly stirs one’s imagination looking at these types of images like a quote from Plutarch “ The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled”
Well done indeed !!
Martin

Thanks Freddy and Martin!