| Designation |
NGC 253 - The Sculptor Galaxy or
"Silver Coin" Galaxy
|
| Type | Spiral Bar Galaxy - Type SAB(s)c: II |
| Constellation | Sculptor |
| Coordinates | Telescope centered at RA '00 46 32' - Dec '- 25 20 23' |
| Magnitude | 7.6 |
| Size | 70,000 light years in diameter |
| Distance | 10 million light years |
| Dimensions | 30 x 6.9 |
| Image Field | 19 x 15 arcminutes |
|
Notes:
|
NGC 253 is the brightest galaxy in the sky outside of our local group. It is nearly face-on from our perspective. It is part of the Sculptor group, which contains about a dozen galaxies. The Chandra X-ray observatory has discovered several black holes within it's disk, which are expected to converge into a single super-massive blackhole one day. |
| It is comparable in size to our own Milky Way galaxy and has an absolute magnitude of -19.4, which is equivalent to about 4.8 billion of our suns. | |
|
|
| Telescopes | Meade 10" LX200 f/10 on Losmandy G-11 with Gemini L3 |
| Focal Length | 1575 mm @ f/6.3 |
| Guiding | SXV guidehead through Takahashi FS60C @ f/5.9 |
| Telescope Control | Maxim DL (V4.5) |
| CCD Camera |
Starlight
Xpress SXV-H9 - USB 2 ExView progressive scan
1392 x 1040 (6.45 uM)
pixel array (8.98 x 6.71 active area)
|
| Image Scale | .88 arcsec/pixel |
| Filters |
1.25"
Astronomik Type II Dichroic IR blocking filters in True Tech filter
wheel - Ha, Red, Green, Blue
|
| Exposures |
176 minutes total: Lum 80
minutes (8 x 10) unbinned, Red, Green & Blue - 32
minutes each (8 X 4) binned 2x - Sigma combined in Maxim.
|
| Calibration | None |
| Processing Software | Maxim DL 4.5, Photoshop CS (8.0) |
| Location | Chiefland Astronomy Village, FL - 29.393 N , - 82.863 W |
| Date/Time |
11/06/05
- 00:52 - 03:46 UT
|
