Terence Galuszka Astrophotography

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NGC 5128 Centauri A - Radio Galaxy

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My second attempt at NGC 5128, 14 months after my first attempt this time using my new Starlight Xpress SXVR-M25C CCD and 18 months experience at imaging.

NGC 5128 is one of the brightest galaxies in our night sky and easily seen under dark rural skies. It shows a very distinctive dark lane through the centre of a very round looking ball luminous sphere. It is also one of our closest elliptical galaxies.

NGC 5128 or Centauri A, has a diameter of approximately 60,000 light years in diameter and recent ESO and NASA images have shown it to be not one but two galaxies, and a result of a cosmic collision. It also emits approximately 1000 times more radio energy than our Milky Way.

Visual observation of the NGC5128 is fairly easy through a pair of binoculars or small to medium telescope. The red circles on the location charts below indicate position.

NGC 5128

Table above right list the galaxy type, whilst the table to the right lists the brightest Constellation stars. m is the apparent visual magnitude, spectral type indicated. Not all doubles listed.

Constellation Centauri  
Right ascension 13h 25m 27.6s  
Declination  -43° 01′ 09″  
Redshift 547 ± 5 km/s  
Distance 13.7 ± 0.9 Mly (4.2 ± 0.3 Mpc)
Type S0 pec  
Apparent dimensions (V) 25′.7 × 20′.0  
Apparent magnitude (V) 7.8  

The chart on the left shows location of NGC 5128. Find the pointers and Southern Cross (southern hemisphere view). From hadar, NGC 5128 make a line towards Epsilon Centauri (just below southern crab nebula title), then double that distance. NGC 5128 is a little to the left in a "dark area" of the sky. Mu Centauri is the nearest bright star to the left.

 

 

SAO Number m Spectral Type
252838 Alpha Centauri 1.35 G2V, K1V, K1V**
252582 Hadar    
251904 Acrux 0.77 B0.5IV
2 Acrux A 0.77 K0III
1 Acrux B 0.77 B1V
240019 Gacrux 2.7 K3-IIIa
240259 Mimosa 2.0 B2.5V
** Spectral type of Alpha Centauri binaries listed also

 

 Technical Details

 

  

 Date

November 2009, late morning

 Location

Wellington New Zealand

 Optics

Celestron C11 @ F10, guided using Orion SSAG and ST80 guidescope

 Mount

Celestron CGE

 Camera

Starlight Xpress SXVR-M25C (image cropped)

 Filters

Hutech LPS filter

 Exposure

3x 3mins, darks, bias and light frames

 Acquisition

NexRemote

 Processing

MaxIm DL EE and Photoshop CS3
    

 

 

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