Africa Over Time

I am happy to present my version of Centaurus A (NGC 5128). It is impossible to do justice to this beautiful galaxy from bortle 8 (worst kind of light polluted) skies. After many hours of recapturing data, my back focus was wrong on my EdgeHD8, and even more hours post processing with many iterations through various possibilities I finally settled on this version. The most basic processing possible. This image represents the data that my telescope and my camera with filters collected from my house in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa. I hope you enjoy.


Centaurus A or NGC 5128 is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type (lenticular galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy) and distance (10–16 million light-years).NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth-brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target, although the galaxy is only visible from low northern latitudes and the southern hemisphere.


The center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a mass of 55 million solar masses, which ejects a relativistic jet that is responsible for emissions in the X-ray and radio wavelengths. By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about half of the speed of light. X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases, resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles. The X-ray jets of Centaurus A are thousands of light-years long, while the radio jets are over a million light-years long.

Like other starburst galaxies, a collision is suspected to be responsible for the intense burst of star formation. Models have suggested that Centaurus A was a large elliptical galaxy that collided and merged with a smaller spiral galaxy.

Reference:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus_A


Gear Used:-
ZWO(1600 MONO, EFW,OAG,Non Rotating Focuser)
Astrodon(R,G,B)
Skywatcher(EQ6)
Celestron(EdgeHD8)
Lodestar(x2)


Software Used:-
Collecting Data=Sequence Generator Pro
Astropixelprocessor(Integration, Cropping, Light Pollution,Star Calibration, Black Point, Saturation,This JPEG)

Acquisition Details:-
Red=13680s
Green=14040s
Blue=11460s
Total= Hours 10.8 Hours of carefully selected data


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