NGC 891 is a spiral galaxy, in the constellation of Andromeda, seen edge on. It is 30 million light years away and is part of our local supercluster. It was discovered by William Herschel on 6 October 1784. It subtends about 13.1 by 2.8 arc-minutes in the sky corresponding to a diameter of about 115 million light years. Recent studies in the infra-red indicate that this may actually be a barred-spiral galaxy but this feature cannot be seen at visible wavelengths because of the obscuring dust in the plane of the galaxy. The IR studies also indicate that the stars are orbitting too quickly which may support the suggestion of a bar.
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This is my first attempt at this rather nice, edge-on galaxy. The dark lane down the centre is clearly visible. This is a typical feature of spiral galaxies seen edge on. Date and Time: 28th September 2011 22:02 to 22:20 UT Camera: MX716 Telescope: LX200 with 0.33 focal reducer and Astronomik CLS filter Capture: star_mx7. 120 seconds exposure, 10 frames. Processing: star_mx7. Dark subtraction, non-linear stretch 25, background. Registax. Stacked all frames. Gaussian wavelets Scheme 1, de-ring dark side 300. |
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