STARRY'S ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY
The pictures posted are taken by myself from my Observatory in Coonabarabran using a digital SLR camera. I am happy to post astro pictures from others if they wish. Leave your email address in my guestbook.
The Centaurus Galaxy, also known as NGC4945 is an edge on dusty spiral galaxy and lies 13 million light years away. Current observations support that it is probably a barred spiral. This is not a great photo and should appear yellowish in colour. This is because of the dust within the galaxy absorbs much of its own blue light and reradiates it in the infra red. The colour is also due to looking through the dust in our own galaxy as it is low to the galactic plane.
This galaxy has a very active nucleus housing a large blackhole. There are starburst regions and sefert characteristics within the nucleus. This is seen in the x-ray part of the spectrum.
It is a member of a cluster of galaxies that include M83 (The Southern Pinwheel galaxy) and Centaurus A Galaxy, both of which are in my images section. NGC 4945 is the 2nd largest member of the cluster, M83 being the largest..
This picture was taken at prime focus using a 14" Meade LX200GPS Telescope and a canon 300D camera near Coonabarabran NSW Australia on 11/03/2005. The photo is a 30 second exposue Processing was done using Maxim DL software.