Messier 83 the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

M83 Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

Located 15 million light-years away between the Hydra and Centaurus constellations lies a bright barred spiral galaxy with loosely bound arms and a high rate of star formation. M83 is one of the nearest galaxies to us and is the largest galaxy in the M83 subgroup of the Centaurus A/ M83 galaxy group, Both NGC 5128 and M83 are members of the “Council of Giants” M83 is 118,000 light-years in diameter which makes it similar in size to our Milky Way galaxy. This galaxy is low on the horizon to image from my backyard, so I used remote data from Telescope Live.

Data acquired from Telescope Live

Image Acquisition Details

Telescope Live remote Imaging CHI-1 CMOS

telescope: Planewave CDK24 (3962 mm, 610 mm, f/6.5)

Accessories: Mathis MI-1000/1250 with absolute encoders

Camera: QHY 600M Pro

Filters: Astrodon Luminance, Red, Green, Blue

Location: El Sauce Observatory, Río Hurtado, Coquimbo Region, Chile

Sky conditions: Bortle 1

Processing: Siril stacking, Pixinsight processing

Integration time: (Luminance: 31x300s, Red: 28x300s, Green: 33x300s, Blue: 32x300s)

Total integration time: 10 hours, 20 minutes