The Sculptor Galaxy, NGC 253

The Sculptor Galaxy, also known as NGC 253 is an intermediate edge on spiral galaxy located in the constellation Sculptor. It is 10 MLY distant. (European Southern Observatory)

The center of the galaxy is composed of older cooler stars that emit a yellow color. Young stars in the spiral arms are hot blue colored stars. The brown whisps throughout the galaxy are dust clouds. The brighter small red regions are HII regions composed of ionized hydrogen gas that is excited by hot neighboring stars. The ionized hydrogen gas glows red. HII regions are star forming regions.

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile

Telescope: Planewave CDK24

Aperture: 610 mm (24 inches), f/6.5

Focal Length: 3962 mm

Camera: QHY 600M Pro CMOS

Filters: LRGB

Total Exposure: 15 hours 0 minutes

Image Processing: PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator (RC Astro);

Adobe Photoshop 12.5.1;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 14.1.1

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.