Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sculptor (Scl)  ·  Contains:  IC 1537  ·  NGC 55

Image of the day 01/28/2022

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    NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy, Rodney Watters
    NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy
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    NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy

    Image of the day 01/28/2022

    Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
      NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy, Rodney Watters
      NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy
      Powered byPixInsight

      NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy

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      Description

      NGC55 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Sculptor about 6.5 million light years from Earth. I've always found this galaxy to be an enigmatic object given that at first glance it is not pretty or visually attractive in any way (others may disagree and please feel free to do so!). It does however demand attention and every astro imager feels the need to have one in their portfolio of images. At first glance one may think that it looks like a lump in space but after spending time with this galaxy it kind of grows on you. It certainly has a unique shape resulting from the angle that the galaxy lies in our line of sight when looking from Earth.

      Processing this image was particularly challenging because of the severe reflection artefacts that were present in the data collected. This required significant work to remove and added quite a few hours of processing time to the workflow. To assist with alleviating the reflecting artefacts, I borrowed techniques from a video tutorial posted by Adam Block on his YouTube channel titled "Remove Scattered Light in Pixinsight". My thanks to Adam for developing this technique.

      The resultant image shows the classic star forming regions comprised of hydrogen gas and showing up as the red patches scattered across the face of the galaxy image. Clusters of young blue stars can be seen as well within the confines of the galaxy.

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      NGC55 - The Whale Galaxy, Rodney Watters

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