This is a composite image after two hours of shooting in one direction during the peak of Perseids activity.
Svitiaz lake, Ukraine. August 12, 2016.
Nikon D600, 17mm @ f/4, 20s, ISO 6400
I'm so impressed with this image! I can't remember seeing another image of Fornax A (NGC 1316) that shows such fantastic tidal tails and tidal shells. And yet, even though the outer, very faint features are so brilliantly brought out, the inner dust structures of the galaxies (NGC 1316 and its small companion NGC 1317) are so sharply visible. The picture is rather wide, too, letting us "put Fornax A in perspective" and see enough of its surroundings to get an even better understanding of it. The small galaxy at bottom left is NGC 1310. It is at the same distance as NGC 1316 and is likely gravitationally bound to it.
A wonderful aspect of the image is that the inner, somewhat bright tidal shells of NGC 1316 look quite a bit like spiral arms.These features are not too unlike the faint, grayish-to-neutral-colored spiral arms of spiral galaxy NGC 1317 (directly below NGC 1316).
NGC 1317 is also wonderfully resolved. We can see the round bright white nucleus of NGC 1317, which is flanked on both sides by what looks like two other round, whitish "pearls". These features are the inner bar of NGC 1317, and the "pearls" are cut off from the nucleus by an inner dust ring. Outside the inner bar is what looks like another dust ring, then there is an inner bright ring likely made up of star clusters, and then there are two dark dust lanes breaking the ring and leading out of it. And then there is an elongated (from 1 o'clock to 7 o'clock) orange expanse which is the outer bar of NGC 1317! And then there is an outer, grayish to neutral ring surrounding the outer bar, and this outer ring breaks up into faint spiral arms. Fantastic! NGC 1317 is a ring within a bar within a ring within a bar within a ring galaxy, like a Russian doll galaxy!
The colors of NGC 1316 and NGC 1317 are fascinating. We would expect a spiral galaxy like NGC 1317 to be bluer than a lenticular galaxy like NGC 1316. Yet their B-V colors are exactly the same, 0.89, which is normal for the lenticular but red for the spiral galaxy. However, the U-B index is a bit more ultraviolet for NGC 1317 than for NGC 1316 (0.29 versus 0.39), and NGC 1317 is much dustier than NGC 1316 (because the infrared "dust" magnitude of NGC 1317 is a bit brighter than its blue magnitude, whereas the infrared magnitude of NGC 1316 is two full magnitudes fainter than its B magnitude.) Taken together, this means that NGC 1317 is more dust reddened than NGC 1316, and it does emit, relatively speaking, more ultraviolet light than NGC 1316. And this means that there should be a blue population in NGC 1317. It isn't visible in Rolf Olsen's image, probably because the dark reddish dust features have been brought out so forcefully, but the blue inner ring of NGC 1317 can be seen here, here and (faintly) here.
I have to recommend this APOD, which shows the tremendous radio lobes being emitted by NGC 1316. There can be no doubt that NGC 1316 has recently swallowed and is still digesting a smaller galaxy. The broken bits of dust seen across the face of NGC 1316, as well as the incredible radio lobes (which are themselves caused by jets from the black hole of NGC 1316 slamming into the intergalactic surroundings) are ample proof of that.
I would love to see Rolf Olsen's image as an APOD!
I headed out to the Wellington south coast in New Zealand mid last week, and was treated to perfect skies and even a showing of the aurora. This image was shot as the galactic centre of Milky Way above was getting brighter, as the moon was setting on the horizon to the west.
Re: Submissions: 2016 August
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 8:53 am
by AlvinWu
2016 Perseus
Explanation:Perseus • Four Girls Mountain, two nights just to wait for this one picture, the camera has recorded a total of 138, of which there are many dapper, less bolide, most of them at 13 am 2:00 to 3:30 photographed (measured meat is extremely small). Only took two cameras, basemap background D810A shooting (also delay shooting before shooting underlay), D4 ultra wide angle with time-lapse capture. The equatorial yo do not use, you can still have a high-quality, casual enlarged print casual look. Pull back to the late star point superimposed two days, a huge workload. In fact, before departure according to the orientation of the radiation spot just northeast from Ping Chong pot look at the past, but fortunately just two peaks and triplet head, so, how to shoot, before I depart on estimates Okay, so the lack of early and late one can not.
Author:Alvin Wu
Email:412924302@qq.com
facebook:AlinWuFoTo
Re: Submissions: 2016 August
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 11:14 am
by shtutik
Span ISS over the monument, dedicated to the first human flight into space
Monument is set on the site of Gagarin's landing in the Saratov region. I think this is a symbolic moment.
I love watching Andromeda return to my northern hemisphere skies in the fall. Seeing Cassiopeia rise reminds me of seeing Andromeda for the first time as a child. Always delightful. Bring on the crisp, clear nights!
About:
First light with my new camera, the QHY 16200A. 3 panel mosaic in Black & White. Imaged with a Luminance filter.
Imaged on the night of the Perseid Meteor shower.
Acquisition:
WO 132 FLT w/ Flat IV
QHY 16200A
Lodestar Autoguider
Astro-Physics Mach 1
Sequence Generator Pro
Calibration:
Calibration in Pixinsight, levels and export in Photoshop
For the night from the 11.-12. August the peak of the Perseids Meteor Shower was predicted and 2016 it should be so intense like every 12 years. Unfortunately, the forecast was very bad for whole Switzerland expect the Italian part. Of course we couldn’t miss this astronomical highlight! Therefore, we packed our gear and jumped into the car. When we reached the St. Gotthard we realized that we had forgotten all our warm jackets, looks like we were too excited. Anyway our sleeping bags we had with us, so we continued our journey through the darkness heading to the dam wall of Verzasca. This place we knew crowded because of the famous James Bond bungee jump, but now we were alone. The best idea ever was to transport our beach chair through half of Switzerland. We snuggled into our sleeping bags and enjoyed the clear night sky. What we were able to observe there surpassed all our expectations! So many and bright shooting stars we had never seen before.
Here I took the still-life genre into a free-fall context, imagining little souvenirs and luxuries cherished in orbit: a model boat, Bulla seashell, cherry tomato, folded poem etc.
Tempestuous nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud in constellation Tucana.
Photo: Hubble Space Telescope.
Birds of a feather!
Great storm portrait, Ana!
Ann
Re: Submissions: 2016 August
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 5:10 pm
by Astro Tom
Here is a video I made from 30 single images during the Perseid Meteor Shower.
In the right hand side of the video the large meteor left a smoke trail that was visible on the following 27 frames, or for about a further 13minutes.
All 30 images were taken with a Canon 5D Mk3 and 14mm lens, at f/2.8, iso3200, and 25s each image.
Main: Hubble image used as luminance and EABA image used as chrominance.
Inset: EABA image.
Credits and copyright: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (narrowband) and EABA/OAC/UNC (RGB); RGB acquisition and processing: Aldo Mottino, Carlos Colazo, Raúl Melián, Carlos Rodríguez and César Fornari.