Monday, April 03, 2017

finally imaged the Spindle (Halifax)

Yeh. The Burke-Gaffney robot, before going on vacation, imaged some galaxies for me, starting with NGC 3115 aka the Spindle Galaxy. A small but bright edge-on galaxy in Sextans. One of the RASC Finest NGCs. I've been trying for this target since January.

RASC Finest the Spindle Galaxy in luminance

Luminance only, 60 seconds subexposures, 10 stacked shots. FITS Liberator, GIMP. North is up; east is left.

The Spindle is also known as Caldwell 53, MCG -1-26-18, and PGC 29265. The core is incredibly bright. There seems to be a large oval halo around the galaxy.

There's a neat double north of the thin bright galaxy. SkyTools 3 Pro says the brightest star, J100516.4-073544, is magnitude 15. The second star is nearly identical in appearance. They are nearly oriented east-west. Unrelated stars according to ST3P.

There's a faint tight double to the south-east. ST3P does not show this pairing. They are near J100544.9-075231. Unrelated stars according to ST3P.

I can see the tiny round galaxy LEDA 1015119 beside the star J100542.5-073958 and east of GSC 05477-1051.

North-west of the GSC star is another small round fuzzy: LEDA 1015564.

Due north of the Spindle is a very faint tiny oval smudge: LEDA 1016665.

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Wikipedia link: NGC 3115.

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