NGC 104 ( 47 Tucanae ) and NGC 121

[MikeODay]

My scope is out of action at the moment ( stupid me stripped the thread on the bottom of one of the tube rings whilst chasing the last tiny bit of cone error - as usual, "perfection is the enemy of the good" ).. Anyway, this is one I captured late last year but I could not get the colour balance right.  With nothing better to do I played around with it today unitl I was reasonalby content with it.

 

( click on image to go to larger image )

Details:

NGC 104 ( also known as 47 Tucanae ) alongside the far more distant NGC 121 in the constellation Tucana by Mike O'Day ( 500px.com/MikeODay ).

NGC 104 - 47 Tucanae, is the second largest Globular Cluster in the sky ( after Omega Centauri ). Only visible from lower latitudes, it was not recorded by European observers until Nicholas de Lacaille did so whilst visiting South Africa in 1751. Containing millions stars and appearing about the size of the full moon, 47 Tucanae is in fact approximately 214 light years in diameter and around 15,000 light years from Earth.

The smaller cluster, NGC 121, appears as a companion to 47 Tucanae but is in fact of similar size, more than ten times farther away at around 200,000 light years and belongs to one of the Milkyway's dwarf galaxies, the Small Magellanic Cloud .

Links:

https://500px.com/MikeODay

http://photo.net/photos/MikeODay

Details:

NGC 104 - RA 00h 24.1m, Dec -72 deg 5'
NGC 121 - RA 00h 268.1m, Dec -71 deg 31'

Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian
Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount
Guiding: Orion Shortube 80 guidescope, Starshoot Autoguider, PHD2
Baader MPCC Mark 3 Coma Corrector
Nikon D5300 (unmodified). Field of view (deg) ~ 1.35 x 0.90
Combination of 66 images ranging from 25 to 200 sec @ ISO400
16 Oct 2015

Pixinsight

 

 

 

[Sam]

This is fantastic! Great image, very mesmerising.

[ollypenrice]

Lovely stuff. Crisp to the core.

Olly

[Chris]

That's really resolved down to the core, great shot!

[Stephen Green]

That is a great image

[PeterCPC]

Great image.

Peter

[laudropb]

Absolutely stunning image.

[abhoriel]

beautiful, yet another southern hemisphere object I'm now jealous of

[MikeODay]

On ‎28‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 19:38, ollypenrice said:

Lovely stuff. Crisp to the core.

Olly

 

On ‎28‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 19:41, Chris Lock said:

That's really resolved down to the core, great shot!

 

On ‎28‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 20:04, Stephen Green said:

That is a great image

 

On ‎28‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 20:18, PeterCPC said:

Great image.

Peter

 

On ‎28‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 09:29, abhoriel said:

beautiful, yet another southern hemisphere object I'm now jealous of

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

We are blessed down here with a number of lovely unique sights; although having said that,  you guys seem to have an unfair number of wonderful galaxies to choose from - do you know who I complain to about that?. 

Cheers

Mike

[MikeODay]

On 28 February 2016 at 22:11, laudropb said:

Absolutely stunning image.

Thanks, much appreciated.

cheers

Mike