Much of the light recorded in this image originated “a long time ago in [galaxies] far, far away”. The two prominent, interacting galaxies (Arp 239: NGC 5278 [larger], NGC 5279[smaller]) are around 370 million light years away. Yet the spiral structure in both galaxies, along with some of the finer details in NGC
5278, can still be discerned – particularly in the oval-shaped insert. Many of the other “dim fuzzies” are even more distant galaxies, including the two galaxies highlighted by circles on the left-hand side, about 1.8 and 2.4 billion light years away. Also, above these, just to the right of the bright blue star, is the strange, sword-shaped galaxy, UGC 8696, potentially an ongoing merger of two galaxies. Finally, there is an extraordinarily distant quasar (SDSS J134135.67+553306.9) in the highlighted area in the lower right-hand corner and at the centre of the square insert. Photons from this quasar could have taken about 9 billion light years to reach our planet – roughly twice the age of the solar system.
Telescope: Celestron 200mm Edge HD with 0.7 reducer (focal length: 1350mm)
Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5
Imaging Cameras: ZWO ASI29 MC & MM Pro; Filter: 2” Optolong L-Pro, Lum and IR
Controller: ASIAIR Plus
Software: PixInsight, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop
30 hours over: Jan 29 to Jun 22, 2023