Posted on 04/04/2025 1:58:59 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups. The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44. The galaxy group is about 100 million light-years distant, far beyond the spiky foreground Milky Way stars, toward the constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive, warped dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 (above and left) they are also known as Arp 316. The spiral toward the lower right corner is NGC 3185, the 4th member of the Hickson group. Like other galaxies in Hickson groups, these show signs of distortion and enhanced star formation, evidence of a gravitational tug of war that will eventually result in galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale. The merger process is now understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. For scale, NGC 3190 is about 75,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of Hickson 44.
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Another mind-boogling pic.
That’s a luck dragon going for the hamburger.
Galaxies get my attention. This is 2.5 hours on M51 Galaxy. There are actually 4 galaxies in the image, 2 are just hard to see. I plan on adding more data, maybe another 2 hours time permitting.
M51 is the big spiral galaxy, with the smaller NGC 5195 seen on top just above M51. It's believed super massive black holes reside at the galaxy core of both galaxies. M51 distance from earth is estimated to be 23 million light years.
Is that a jet contrail that I see?
A contrail or a chemtrail???
Nice image!
Great photo! I’ve seen it just like that in my 4 1/2” refractor, only a LOT dimmer.
Thanks...
Btw, if your mount will handle a camera, go for it! Our eyes just can’t compete with a camera.
I started getting my feet wet in solar photography about a year ago. I’ve gotten a few decent pictures. I’m using a Player One camera on my 115mm f/7 scope. It’s pretty cool. I have quite a bit to learn, yet.
Stay at it. It can be very frustrating, I know this all too well. That pic above was actually about 4 hours exposure but I had to dump about 2 hours of images due to a variety of issues. I wasn’t very happy about that but that’s just part of the game.
I certainly will stay at it, thanks!
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