Galaxy Clusters
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Galaxy Clusters |
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Part of the Fornax Galaxy Cluster. These little fellows are tough to see and image, lying as they do low down in the southern sky. Numbering from the top of the image we have NGC 1387 (magnitude 11.7), NGC 1381 (magnitude 11.5 and the sideways on galaxy), NGC 1379 (magnitude 11.8) and NGC's 1374 (magnitude 11.1) and 1375 (magnitude 12.4) side by side at the bottom |
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As we have done in previous galaxy group images, here is a negative of the above image, which shows the galaxies much more clearly. This is a most interesting area of the sky, and it is a shame that it only rises a few degrees above the horizon, even in Houston. Our consolation is that in the UK (our home country) they are never visible at all. |
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The Perseus Galaxy Cluster. Taken at f/5, this wide field image of the galaxy cluster in the constellation of Perseus shows more than forty galaxies of all shapes and sizes |
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Astronomers will very often search for faint objects by using a negative print of a particular area of the sky. Here is a negative print of the above image. See if you can detect the faint galaxies easier in the negative as opposed to the positive print. We have also printed the names of the galaxies on the image so you can see where they are. Can you see more than the 44 we have named? |
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STEPHAN'S QUINTET - Located very close to the large spiral galaxy NGC 7331 in Pegasus, this group of galaxies is extremely faint and tough to find and see. This image is a one hour Luminance exposure using our C-14 telescope and ST-8XE camera. All five galaxies span an area less than 3.5 minutes of arc, and several of them are interacting. Full Resolution Image (0.7Mb) |
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THE TRIO IN LEO. Galaxies M65 (lower right in the image), M66 (upper right) and NGC 3628 (left) are all part of the same group of galaxies at a distance of 65 million light years from Earth. This LRGB image is a compilation of eight 5 minute exposures masked for the luminance, and six 5 minute exposures for each of the colors. Full sized image (0.5Mb) |
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GALAXIES in the VIRGO CLUSTER. In March 2002 we imaged this collection of galaxies in the northern part of the Virgo cluster. Taken with the FSQ at f/5, this 50 minute exposure shows (from the left) NGC 4477 - m11.4, size 3.8' x 3.4', NGC 4479 - m13.4, size 1.5' x 1.2', NGC 4473 - m11.2, size 4.5' x 2.5', NGC 4458 - m12.0, size 1.5' x 1.5' and NGC 4461, m11.1, size 3.6' x 1.4' |
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And from Spain in June 2007 we imaged the area around Messier 86. This image is a 60 minute luminance using the Takahashi FSQ telescope and the ST8-XE CCD camera. For those who would like to know which galaxy is which we have posted a fully labelled image as well. |
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The area around ARP 71in Hercules - actually part of one of the Abell Galaxy Clusters. We haven't counted all the galaxies in this field, but we have attempted to label them here. One thing which became clear to us very quickly is that there are a large number of galaxies in the image which simply do not appear on either The SKY or Megastar. There is an excellent full sized image (540 Kb) here |
