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Fornax Cluster
Fornax Galaxy Cluster
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Fornax Galaxy Cluster: This is most of the Fornax galaxy cluster, a group of over fifty gravitationally bound together. The bright galaxy at the center of the image is NGC1365, a very large (about 200,000 light years acroos, twice the diameter or our Milky Way) barred spiral galaxy estimated to be 60 million light years away from us. There are literally dozens of catalogued galaxies in this image; a number of them--along with the supernova--are labelled here. Of special interest to me is the appearance of a supernova just as I started imaging this target. The bright blue star right next to the center of NGC1365 (the largest galaxy in the image, at the center of the image; the supernova is probably only evident in the two largest versions) is Supernova 2012fr, which first appeared about October 27, 2012, peaking in brightness in mid-November.
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Technical Information:
LRGB: 255:165:225:210; L consisted of seventeen 15-minute unbinned images; R, G and B also consisted of 15-minute unbinned images.
Equipment: Takahashi FSQ106 quadruplet fluorite apochromatic refractor, SBIG STL11000M with internal color filter wheel (Astrodon Type 2 filter set), on a Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.
Image Acquisition/Camera Control: Maxim DL, controlled with ACP, working in concert with TheSky v6.
Processing: All images calibrated (darks and dawn flats), aligned, combined and deconvolved (L data only) in CCDStack. Color combine in Photoshop. Finish work (curves and levels, adjustment of contrast) was done in Photoshop CS5.
Location: Data acquired remotely from Fair Dinkum Skies, Moorook, South Australia.
Date: Images taken mid-November 2012. Image posted November 19, 2012.
Pixel scale: 3.5 arcseconds per pixel.
CCD Chip temperature: -15C
Copyright 2012 Mark de Regt