NGC 1097

NGC 1097, also known as Caldwell 67 or Arp 77, is a barred spiral galaxy located about 48 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Fornax , the Furnace.

NGC 1097 shows beautiful, outstretched blue spiral arms intertwined with pinkish star-forming regions.

This enimatic galaxy has more interesting characteristics…

It is a Seyfert galaxy with a supermassive black hole in its center. The area immediately around the black hole shines powerfully with radiation coming from the material falling in.

The distinctive ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation due to an inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy. These star-forming regions are glowing brightly thanks to emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen.

NGC 1097 contains another peculiar feature. This image shows hints of two faint, mysterious jets, seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms. In fact, four faint jets are ultimately recognized in some optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but probably don't originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large spiral's ancient past (see also APOD of Mike Selby & Mark Hanson, Nov. 16th 2022).

This image was acquired with CHI-1 (Planewave CDK24 telescope and FLI PL9000 camera in El Sauce Observatory, Chile). Data from 6 one-click observations.

Total exposure time 480 minutes

LRGB 12 subs of 600s with each filter.

Processing withs.