IC 239

Click on image for larger version.

At a distance of 30-40 million light years IC 239 is not terribly distant. However, its low (surface) brightness may indicate that this galaxy isn't as massive as many others of the same type (M101 for example). The bright foreground stars of our own galaxy make detecting the delicate structure of this face-on spiral a difficult venture. There are hints of bluish spiral arms with a myriad of pink nebulae (star forming regions). If we lived in this galaxy, our sun would orbit the galactic center at a speed of 280km/s. This is a bit faster than our speed in the Milky Way at around 220km/s.

Equipment

20in RC Optical Systems telescope Operating at f/8.4
Paramount ME Robotic Telescope Mount
SBIG ST10XME CCD camera with color filter wheel

L R G B color production was used to create this image.

Luminance = 120 minutes binned 1x1
Red = 20 minutes binned 2x2
Green = 20 minutes binned 2x2
Blue = 20 minutes binned 2x2

Needless to say, the 8th magnitude star in this field was very difficult to deal with during processing. Significant internal reflections can still be seen.

Digital Development (DDP) via Maxim/DL was also used in order to display the the very dim and very bright details of the image simultaneously.

Minimum credit line: Sharon Kempton and Karen Brister/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

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Updated: 11/08/2004