Select an image size for a larger view:

800 x 600

1200 x 800

1600 x 1200



            
 This extremely
            faint galaxy is highly asymmetrical in appearance. The entire
            galaxy fills the short dimension of this frame, yet the brightest
            area is above center. Its always an amusing surprise when objects
            don't appear as plotted on the atlas! IC1613 is a 10th magnitude
            integrated brightness spread out over a quarter degree of sky.
            So faint is this object that I had to do a 1 minute exposure
            just to see if it was even there in the framing shot. Most star
            images in this IB(s)m galaxy are 18 - 20th magnitude. Another
            unexpected bonus was the proliferation of gold and blue supergiant
            stars across the entire galaxy, the gold stars particularly evident
            on the lower left edge of the galaxy. Some very nice HII regions
            appear on the upper left quadrant. One is a large ring shape
            embedded within an association of many hot blue O/B stars.

            
There are some
            additional objects in this field worth noting. Inside the galaxy
            itself are four faint anonymous galaxies which of course are
            far behind this Local Group denizen. The brightest and easiest
            to see is an edge on on the lower left edge of the main glow,
            just below a bright star. This is MAC0105+0204, and unknown class
            17th magnitude probable spiral type. there is another, just to
            the right of the core inside the bright glow, a 17th mag object
            as well, MAC014+0207.

            
And of course
            lets not forget the Asteroid 1998 FV67, a newly discovered member of
            our solar system in 1998, which is currently at 19.3 magnitude.
            It is the trail of colored dots on the lower right part of the
            image. This is because it moved between color frames and you
            can see the repeated sequence of RGBRGB as the object moved.
            So the top is the start of the exposure, since it is the red
            dot.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Cooling
Guider: SBIG ST4
Exposure:  LRGB = 120:20:20:20 (RGB Binned 2x2)
RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 1.05: 1.11 (G2V)
Filters:  AstroDon RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 5.0 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  35 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL,  Photoshop, PixInsight, CCDOps Debloomer.
HOME   GALAXIES     EMISSION NEBS     REFLECTION NEBS   COMETS  
   GLOBULARS     OPEN CLUST     PLANETARIES     LINKS