Ringed Galaxy NGC 7020
31-Aug-2018
The southern galaxy NGC 7020 presents an unusual morphology: it includes a very regular outer ring which is completely detached and which envelops an inner ring/lens zone with a hexagon surrounding an X shape.
The outer ring has a high contrast compared to those usually observed in barred galaxies, yet NGC 7020 is not obviously barred. (Description: Ronald, Buta, (November 1990). "The ringed X-galaxy NGC 7020")
Image:
- 65x 360s luminance
- 23x 360s red
- 34x 360s green
- 38x 360s blue
Total integration 16 hours.
Hardware:
- Celestron 11" EdgeHD
- Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik luminance, deep sky RGB filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Starlight Xpress Active Optics
- Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
- Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II
Location:
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
- Imaged over 5 nights. New Moon.
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
- Captured with TheSkyX Professional
- Guiding with PHD2
- FocusLock live focusing
- PixInsight: Calibration, registration, integration, crop, dynamic background extraction, denoise, deconvolution, color calibratio, background neutralization, HDR multiscale transform, SCNR, histogram stretch, curves