ngc 4216 and neighbours - rework

[wimvb]

As the title says, this is a rework of an old image. I collected the data for this one back in the spring of 2020, so it must be one of the first from my observatory.

New tools and a little more experience allowed me to pull out more detail and better colours. Dwarf galaxies that are forming in the tidal tail of ngc 4216 are just visible, but to show the tidal tail itself, I would need more data.Technical details:

gear: SW MN190 on SW AZ-EQ6 with ZWO ASI174MM-Cool camera and ZWO LRGB filters

Total integration time: 13 hours

Processed in PixInsight with BXT and NXT. I used GHS stretch just to test it on galaxy images, but imo, it doesn't make much of a difference compared to histogram transformation and curves transformation.

In the inverted and super stretched luminance master, several more interested features are visible. I've annotated the image with reference to this article:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/767/2/133

A, B, C, and D are dwarf galaxies. The galaxies are the darker areas just above the letters, except for galaxy D which is just below the D. The darker structure F4 is a tidal stream extending from galaxy VCC 165.

Edited June 24, 2023 by wimvb

[Sunshine]

A beautiful image, there's something so special about multiple galaxies in one frame.

[wimvb]

7 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

A beautiful image, there's something so special about multiple galaxies in one frame.

Thank you, Sunshine. It's even more special when those galaxies form an interesting composition, as here.

[symmetal]

A very interesting image, particularly with the extra information Wim. Thanks for posting. Where did you find the information about the dwarf galaxies?

Alan

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

A very interesting image, particularly with the extra information Wim. Thanks for posting. Where did you find the information about the dwarf galaxies?

Alan

Thank you, Alan. Much appreciated.

I have a habit of researching my images on Aladin/Simbad either before I capture the data, or during processing. That's where I found the reference.

[symmetal]

Hi Wim,

I looked on Aladin and saw references to your dwarfs A and B on Hyperleda but couldn't find the info on C and D. Loading the NED database showed many extra galaxies but they don't seem to differenciate on galaxy type to know whether they are dwarfs. I'm not an expert at using Aladin so maybe missed something.

NGC4216 and VCC165 are noted as being GinPair which I thought implied they were drinking buddies 😊, but it apparently just means 'Galaxy in Pair of Galaxies' which is a bit disappointing. 

Alan

[wimvb]

@symmetal I got the reference for the dwarfs from the article I linked to. They’re in one of the figures.

[symmetal]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

@symmetal I got the reference for the dwarfs from the article I linked to. They’re in one of the figures.

Oops. I missed the actual link in your post. 

Alan