Terence Galuszka Astrophotography

NGC 55 is one of the closest and brightest members of the Sculptor Group of galaxies. It appears as a faint cigar shaped object due to its edge-on position. There is some debate as to the classification of M55. Generally it is considered to be an irregular Galaxy, however some catalogues classify it as a spiral.

Members of the Sculptor Group include:
ESO 407-18, ESO 471-06, NGC 7793, ESO 293-35, ESO 349-31, NGC 45, NGC 55, NGC 59, Scl-dE1, ESO 294-10, IC 1574, NGC 247
NGC 253, ESO 540-30, ESO 540-31, ESO 540-32, NGC 300 , NGC 625, ESO 245-05 

Visual observation of the NGC 55 is not easy, even under dark skies. Good contrast and and a mid size telescope is recommended. The red circles on the location and the table details information about the galaxy.

The chart shows the location of NGC 55 and the table lists the brightest in that area, and the galaxy type for NGC 253. m is the apparent visual magnitude for stars and surface magnitude for Galaxies.

 Technical Details

 Date

August 2009

 Location

Wellington New Zealand

 Optics

Celestron C11 OTA @ F6.3

 Mount

Celestron CGE

 Camera

Starlight Xpress SXVR-M25C (image cropped)

 Filters

N/A

 Exposure

5x10min sub, 5x darks, bias and flats.

 Acquisition

NexRemote

 Processing

MaxIm DL EE and Photoshop CS3