Astrophotography by Anthony Ayiomamitis

Deep Sky Object Image Gallery

Galaxies are perhaps one of the most attractive deep-sky objects to observe and photograph. They represent massive collections of dust, gas and countless billions of stars and are best described as islands of space matter across the universe. They are characterized as being either spiral or elliptical in nature and usually have a bright central core. Equally stunning to observe (with large-aperture telescopes) and image are galaxy clusters which represent collections of gravitationally-bound groups of galaxies whose members number from tens to thousands and which are classified on the basis of their richness (ie. number of galaxy members), shape (spherical, flat or irregular) and content (spiral or elliptical). Charles Messier's list of deep-sky celestial gems includes approximately forty bright and large galaxies.

Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, represents a galaxy within the Local Group (of Galaxies) numbering 30 galaxies in total, five million light years in diameter and which is moving in unison towards the constellation of Virgo. Other prominent galaxies within the Local Group include Andromeda (150,000 light-years in diameter), Triangulum (40,000 light-years in diameter) and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (30,000 and 20,000 light-years in diameter respectively). The center of the Local Group is believed to lie between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. The richest member of our Local Group is the Virgo Cluster which is believed to contain approximately 2500 galaxies mostly elliptical in nature.

Note: NGC 185 in Cassiopeia is a dim dwarf spheroidal galaxy with an apparent magnitude of 9.2 and a surface brightness of 14.0 mag/arcmin2. Discovered in 1787 by Herschel, this galaxy is a member of the Local group of galaxies and forms an interesting physical and bound pair with NGC 147 (UGC 326) which lies less than one degree away. Lying at a distance of 2.28 million light-years away, it has an apparent diameter of 11' by 9.8' and spans 5,000 light-years across. It is visible in amateur equipment as a slightly elongated structure with a dim core and is surrounded by three bright stars ranging in magnitude from 8.43 to 9.61. Inspection of the hyperlinked image below will reveal several dim galaxies including PGC 2270 (mag 17.2), PGC 2318158 (mag 16.0) and PGC 2315395 (mag 17.9).

NGC 185 is also one of the approximately 60 galaxies for which (extragalactic) globular clusters have been identified with its eight clusters ranging in magnitude from 16.7 (FJJV) to 19.7 (FJJII) and dated to be from 5+2 (FJJVII) to 10+2 (FJJIII) billion years-old. Further details involving these eight extragalactic globular clusters are available in the study by Sharina et al (here).

Please click on the image below to display in higher resolution (1335 x 900)

Image Details
NGC 185 - Dwarf Galaxy in Cassiopeia
Imaging Details
NGC Number:
185

Common Name(s):
N/A

Other Designations:
UGC 396, PGC 2329

Object Type:
Galaxy

Object Classif:
dE3 Pec

Constellation:
Cassiopeia

RA / Dec:
00h 38m 58s /
48° 20' 14"


Distance:
2.28 million light-yrs

Object Size:
11' x 9.8'

Magnitude:
9.2
Date:
Nov 02-03, 2008
21:15 - 02:00 UT+2


Location:
Athens, Greece

Equipment:
AP 160 f/7.5 StarFire EDF
AP 1200GTO GEM
SBIG ST-10XME
SBIG CFW-8A
Astrodon Tru-Bal CRGB


Integrations:
Lum :  120 min (24 x 05 min)
Red :  040 min (04 x 10 min)
Green :  040 min (04 x 10 min)
Blue :  040 min (04 x 10 min)
Binning :  1x1 (Lum),  1x1 (RGB)

Temperatures:
Ambient : + 15.5 ° C
CCD Chip : - 20.0 ° C

Software:
CCDSoft V5.00.188
AIP4Win V2.2
Photoshop CS2