NGC 253: The Sculptor Galaxy
“The brightest galaxy of the Sculptor Group, about 11 million light-years away: a dusty starburst spiral seen at a high inclination, with prominent dust lanes and bright star-forming knots.”
NGC 253, the Sculptor Galaxy, is also known as the Silver Coin Galaxy and is listed as Caldwell 65. It is the brightest galaxy of the Sculptor Group, about 11 million light-years away, with a diameter of about 120,000 light-years measured at the D27 isophote. Caroline Herschel discovered it in 1783 during a comet search. We see it at a high inclination, which makes its dust lanes stand out against the bright disc.
It is a starburst galaxy, undergoing a period of intense star formation that has produced several super star clusters. Its apparent size is about 27.5 by 6.8 arcminutes and its apparent magnitude is about 8, bright enough to be seen with binoculars. Mottled dust, pink star-forming regions and the yellow central bar are visible in this image, and the H-alpha data adds detail to the star-forming regions.
The data was captured remotely from Swan Reach, South Australia, over five nights, in collaboration with Paride Gabini, Rino Morra, Federico Palaia and Alessio Carmine Scipione, on a rig operated with NINA at Swan Reach Imaging (https://swanreachimaging.com.au). The frames were collected jointly by the group sharing the rig. Stacked and processed in PixInsight.
Integration
| Filter | Subs |
|---|---|
| L | 68 x 300s (5h 40m) |
| R | 31 x 300s (2h 35m) |
| G | 23 x 300s (1h 55m) |
| B | 25 x 300s (2h 05m) |
| Ha | 8 x 1200s (2h 40m) |