Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83)

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'Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83)'

Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83)

[Public Domain] 11 Mar 2016 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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One of the better shots from my recent break in the weather, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) which is big and bright in the southern sky, you could even see it with binoculars. Six supernovae (SN 1923A, SN 1945B, SN 1950B, SN 1957D, SN 1968L and SN 1983N) have been observed in this relatively close galaxy (Only 15 million light years, basically a walk to the shops), and as you can tell by the years and frequency it’s probably due for another one soon. While most galaxies swirl around a central, gravitationally dominant black hole, a few like this one have a “double nucleus” where a black hole and a large and heavy enough cluster of stars also dance around each other. This photo is taken on a colour CCD camera and is 22 x 3m : total 1 hour & 6 minutes. Celestron 9.25″ Edge HD / QHY12 CCD

This galaxy is part of the Centaurus A group, so a short swing of the telescope away is this incredible looking galaxy that I discussed here recently with supernova activity:

In other news…

I recently got an “Image of the Week” on the European Space Agency for a minor post processing job I did when their Mars Express repurposed camera sent back images of Mars. Check it out here.

Finally, I’ve been writing some tutorials for the new online resource : PhotographingSpace.com, the latest of which is about converting a 2D astrophoto into 3D for viewing as a cross vision pair, google cardboard or as a red-blue 3D glasses image. You can read my tutorial about 3D Astrophography here, or whip out your red-blue glasses and check out one of my nebulas in 3D below!