Antennae Galaxies LRGB

These are the Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/NGC 4039), a pair of graviationally bound galaxies 45 million lightyears away in the constellation Corvus. The name given as the huge amounts of stars, gas and dust ejected due to the collision have formed the shape of an antennae. The red at the heart of the galaxies is actually a huge amount of dust disturbed by the merger, but surrounding that are areas of pink which are indicative of chaotic star formation across both galaxies triggered by the collision.

The pre-calibrated data was acquired from the CHI-1 (Planewave CDK24, ~4000mm focal length) telescope in Chile, through SHO astrodon filters. Total integration time is 8 hours with 2 hours across each RGB filter and also 2 hours LUM. I processed the data in Affinity Photo including the use of the fantastic Gradient, Noise & StarXterminator plugins.