I seem to be imaging M81 group galaxies. So here's another. It sure is a weird spiral galaxy. Due to my weather only being clear when the moon is nice and bright this doesn't go as deep as I would have liked. But it is now into my trees so it will have to wait for next year.

I really wanted to get the faint outer halo about this galaxy but only got part of it thanks to the moon. Also the excess ultra violet galaxy to the east (left) has a long tidal arm swing around on the side toward NGC 2976. It is only barely visible thanks to the moon. It is really blue but in killing the intense blue background from moonlight I also killed its blue color. It is known by the catalog ID of GALEX 2485954146456307057. Now that trips off the tongue well, don't you think? I couldn't find any red shift data on it so have no idea how far away it is.

At least the main part of the galaxy is nice and bright so shows up well. It is odd in having no hint of a central bulge or even much of a core of old stars. Just that near starlike orange point in the center. I can't tell if it is a foreground star or the core of the galaxy. But then most of the galaxies in the M81 group are rather strange in one way or another. Many have a strong excess of blue stars as well. That would seem to indicate all have interacted gravitationally in the near past. It has a lot of HII regions but they were just beyond my seeing abilities. The big one at the north end was drowned out by the light of the star cluster it has made. Some hint can be seen of the one at the south end. This winter, when it has been clear has had some very poor seeing unfortunately. This night was no exception.

14" LX200R, L=4x10' binned 2x2, RGB=2x10' each color binned 3x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

Attached Images

NGC2976LUM4X10RGB2X10X3R-7.jpg (125.7 KB, 53 views)

A very peculiar galaxy! Nice image Rick, huge focal length!

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Mike
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A strange looking galaxy, but does appear to have several nice clusters and emission regions within.

Robert

Wow. That is a great shot. What kind of equipment do you need for a view like this?

My that glow is extensive and beautiful.

Kind regards
Matt

You mean to see it like that visually? That can't happen in any scope. The eye captures light for about 1/10 of s second at about the same efficiency as the CCD I use did for 40 minutes just to get the luminosity data in this shot. Then it took another hour for the color data to be recorded.

So while you can see this galaxy visually and get some hints of mottling and lack of a core that's about it. Even a 6" will show the galaxy as a smudge of light. A 10" will show the mottling. No scope will show much more. Nor will you ever see the color as the intensity is way to low to activate the color "film" in your eye. Only the black and white rods will see this dim of light, not the cones that see in color.

Going to a bigger scope doesn't help much. There's a rule of optics that works against you here. You'd think it gets brighter as power mirror size goes up but power has to go up in the same ratio. If it doesn't the excess light misses the pupil of your eye so is never seen. Cameras My CCD doesn't have any of these limitations so can easily image far more than I can see.

I remember viewing Centaurus A that Iceman just posted using a 6" f/4, a 10" f/5 and a 12.5" f/6 all with a 5 mm exit pupil that did fit the eye. Even there oddly the angular size of the galaxy as seen by the eye barely changed. It looked just as big in the 6" as the 12.5" Though the 12.5" was running over twice the power so it should have looked twice as big in angular size. That's even a worse result than I'd have expected and I still can't explain it. The dust lane was more easily seen in the larger scopes however so that made sense.

To see galaxies as more than a smudge with a brighter center, even the major ones, you have to really learn how to train your eye and brain to work together to dig out faint detail from all the noise you eye sends the brain. You learn tricks such as gently moving the field of view and using averted vision while doing so. You learn which eye is best and where in its field of vision it sees faint stuff best. It's quite a learning process. The more you try the sooner you catch on. You also need very dark skies. Two nights may at first appear the same but one time you'll see things you don' the other. Not sure if its my eye or a subtle difference in the sky when that happens. Now that I'm entering my 7th decade of this hobby I don't see what I used to but still can easily out see our less experienced younger members with these eyes thanks to decades of learning what works and doesn't -- for me.

So while you can see dust lanes and star clouds (NGC 204 for instance) in the Andromeda Galaxy and start to see the spiral arms in the Whirlpool galaxy in an 8 or 10 inch scope, no scope will begin to show them as seen in photographs taken with much smaller telescopes. The photos are very misleading about what you will see visually.

On a side note, most times you see nice pretty pictures like this on the box the scope comes in run far away. This is usually just a marketing ploy to sell a rather poor telescope for far more money than it is worth. There can be exception but even those won't show you anything remotely close as far as nebula and galaxies go. The moon is a different story. It looks just like the photos. In fact, photographing the detail you see visually is quite a challenge. Planets like Jupiter and Saturn will look good as well, especially Saturn, but still rarely as good as the photo on the box, and certainly far smaller with less color and contrast than the photo on the box.

Rick

hi Rick,

this is a most spectacular image of that difficult object!
your image holds lots of detail that is rarely seen in images of that galaxy.
very well done!!!

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best regards,
Dietmar
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www.stargazer-observatory.com

Rick,

A very nice shot. It looks like a piece of jewelry.

Your discussion on imaging and seeing is also very interesting. I've only tried looking at galaxies a few times when I've been at a dark site. It is exciting, but mostly an intellectual exercise as you said.

And I am of the opinion that the images we take don't represent what the objects "look" like because they can't really be seen.

--Andy

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Observatorio de la Ballona

I managed to see NGC 2976 a few days ago with the dob. It was a small, very faint fuzzy blob but yet I was still delighted.

To see your image just adds to my sense of wonderment. Thanks for sharing

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Beer, the cause of and solution to, all lifes problems

A Superb image of this small and distant galaxy. A pearl of beauty and you captured it with fine details, Oustanding processing and capturing you did great also with excellent info. Thanks Rick and Clear Skies.