Spiral Galaxy NGC 2903 area

clic for 42% size 1489 x 1099 (297 kB)

Clic here for 70% size 2481x1831 (695 kB)

 

About this Image

NGC 2903 is a beautiful barred spiral galaxy in Leo which Charles Messier missed when compiling his catalog - It was finally discovered by William Herschel who cataloged it as on November 16, 1784.
The distance to NGC 2903 is approx. 22 million light years, it spans across an area of more than 110 000 light years.
In the upper left part there is the mag 12 spiral galaxy NGC 2916.
At the opposite site a very distant galaxy cluster is situated.
North is up.
Find a closer view on NGC 2903 with the f/10 setup here.

 


Technical Details
Optics

16" cassegrain in primary focus at f/3

Mount MK-100 GEM
Camera SBIG STL-11000M at -25C, internal filter wheel
Filters Astronomik LRGB
Date March 11-14, 2007.
Location Wildon/Austria
Sky Conditions mag 5.5 sky, seeing 1.7-2" FWHM for L,
Exposure L:R:G:B = 90:40:30:40 minutes (10 minute sub-exposures)
Processing Image aquisition in Maxim, preprocessing in CCDStack; wavelet processing; color balance, curves, L blending, unsharp mask in Photoshop CS2;
north is up;