Starburst Galaxy NGC 1808
04-Jun-2020
NGC 1808 has an unusual, warped shape. Most spiral galaxies are flat disks, but this one has curls of dust and gas at its outer spiral arms.
This peculiar shape is evidence that NGC 1808 may have had a close interaction with another nearby galaxy, NGC 1792, which is not in the picture. Such an interaction could have hurled gas towards the nucleus of NGC 1808, triggering the exceptionally high rate of star birth
Source: European Space Agency
NGC 1808 is a 40 million light-years away, and stretches about 35,000 light-years across.
Image:
- 59x 300s CLS-CCD light pollution filter
- 27x 300s Red
- 21x 300s Green
- 21x 300s Blue
Total integration 10 hours 40 minutes. Focal length: 1980mm
Hardware:
- Celestron 11" EdgeHD
- Celestron 0.7x EdgeHD focal reducer
- Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik CLS-CCD light pollution filter
- Astrodon RGB Gen2 E-Series Tru-Balance filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Innovations Foresight ONAG
- Starlight Instruments Feather Touch Focuser
Location:
- Exposed over 6 nights between 5th December 2019 and 29th January 2020
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
- Captured with TheSkyX Professional
- Guiding with PHD2
- PixInsight: Calibrate, align, integrate, dynamic background extraction, LRGB combination, noise reduction, photometric color calibration, histogram, local histogram equalization, curves, crop.