NGC1291 by
Mathieu Guinot, sur Flickr
HI all,
Thanks to Martin Pugh's data set combinated with a Telescope Live dataset, i was able to process this fantastic galaxy in a close view and reveal the very nice structures and colors in its core as well as in its faint outer ring and its generous background .
This is a very interesting and quite unusual object on which i had a great pleasure to work!
The barred lenticular galaxy NGC 1291 (also known as NGC 1269), located about 33 million light-years away in the constellation Eridan, is remarkable for its inner bar of stars, and for its faint outer ring structure where fledgling stars ignite. Our own Milky Way galaxy has a bar, but not as large as NGC 1291, which makes it particularly interesting (also because of its proximity to us) for understanding how bars of stars like this shape the fate of galaxies.
Is is the largest example of galaxy at the transition stage between late lenticulars and early spirals : from the large and semi-detached outer ring emerge two faint spiral arms which can be seen on this high resolution image.
The bar formed early in the history of this very old galaxy about 12 billion years ago. It stirred up matter, forcing stars and gas out of their original circular orbits into large, non-circular radial orbits, creating resonant zones where gas is compressed and triggers the formation of new stars.
The stars in the central bulge region, giving it its reddish hue, are the oldest and most of the gas (or star-forming fuel) was used there by these generations of stars: when galaxies are young and gas-rich, the star bars push the gas toward the center, fueling star formation.
Over time, as the fuel runs out, the central regions become quiet and star-forming activity shifts to the periphery of the galaxy. There, density waves and resonances induced by the central bar help convert gas into stars. The outer ring is one such resonance zone, where gas has been trapped and ignited in a star-forming frenzy, giving it the bluish hue typical of young star clusters.
Data : Combination of a Telescope Live (RC1000 in Chile) data set (L : 18x300s was used) and a Martin Pugh's (CDK17 in Chile) data set (L : 22x1200s RGB : 15/15/15 x1200s H : 13x1800s).
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Enthusiastic astrophotographer of latitude 42
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