On the edge...

Folks - a lovely edge-on galaxy - and large to boot (12 arcmins length).

According to Admiral Smyth, it is another discovery of Caroline Herschel, who found it in August, 1783. Her brother William Herschel cataloged it as H V.19.

Enjoy!

NGC 891

Cheers

Dave McD

One of the most photographed galaxies in the sky (bar our own of course)

NGC 891 is beautiful - nice detail in those dust lanes!!!

Wonder is there anybody there shooting us????

Keep an eye on this one Dave, A supernova could be easy to spot there!!

Keith..

Nice shot Dave. It has an almost 3-D aspect to it, with the bulge protruding from between the dust lanes. But also because it looks likt it is in the foreground, in front of the stars, and not further away behind them! The 2 stars on its edge in the upper half almost appear to be slightly eclipsed by the galaxy.

Seanie.

Once of my favourite galaxies that one, it just looks so cool!

Thanks lads.

Seanie - nice description

Keith - could be an SN candidate galaxy but you'd need a good eye to spot it amongst all the other stars. Being edge on doesn't help either but definately one to watch!

Cheers

Dave

Hi Dave,

You've been putting up some beautiful shots recently but I'm curious as to why the brighter stars look rather blobby. Are all these shots through the C8 or are you using a refractor? Would a minus-violet filter help cure this if it is a chromatic aberation problem? If it's the C8, then I would be surprised if the corrector plate was introducing so much chromatic-ab! I'm not trying to take the mick - just curious!

Phil.

...of course, it could just be a dodgy mount!!!!