NGC 253 the Silver Coin Galaxy

By: Vlad Fedosov
10/29/2020

Object info:

NGC 253 is a fairly large and bright galaxy in the constellation of Sculptor. This galaxy is magnitude 8 and about 27×7′ in size. Lets see what you can see in a common scope in this intergalactic gem!

Observation:

Having set up my new EAA rig that was powered by the ASI Air Pro I was eager to let it loose on some deep sky objects. The half moon was out and there was some haze in the sky so conditions where certainly not ideal but I always find nights like this are perfect to trying out new equipment. This way I do not feel like I’m wasting prime observing time on fiddling with the gear and trying to figure of how it works.

NGC 253 is a galaxy that I have seen before visually from a dark sky with my 18″ dob. It was interesting what EAA could do on this guy. The galaxy does show a decent amount of knots and molting even visually in a large scope as its currently undergoing a period of star formation. These galaxies are known as a starburst galaxy. In some cases this periods of star formation are triggered by galactic mergers when two galaxies merge! In a lot of cases it is believed that supernova shockwaves trigger the star formation!

After messing around with the live stacking mode in the ASI air app I was able to get it to stack this image. It’s fairly obvious that no calibration frames where used so its a bit of a messy affair, but this does give you an idea of what you can expect to see in a live view if doing EAA with the ASI Air Pro. Several of the bright star forming regions can easily be seen especially towards the center of the galaxy. I always wonder at how insanely bright our night sky would be even at night had the Earth been located towards the center of one of these galaxies. How much of this can you see visually with your scope?