M 77 and NGC 1055

Location: Warrumbungle Observatory, Australia (149 11 E, 31 16 S)

Date: Various dates in October 2012

Camera: QHY-9 and QHY filters

Telescope: William Optics M120

Frames: Sixteen 10 minute luminance frames and twelve 300 second exposures for each of RGB.

Processing: Stacked in CCDStack, balanced, curves, highlights, noise reduction and selective sharpening in Photoshope CS5.

Text adapted from APOD: Large spiral galaxy NGC 1055 (lower left) joins spiral M77 in this lovely cosmic view toward the constellation Cetus. The narrowed, dusty appearance of edge-on spiral NGC 1055 contrasts nicely with the face-on view of M77's bright nucleus and spiral arms. Both over 100,000 light-years across, the pair are dominant members of a small galaxy group about 60 million light-years away. At that estimated distance, M77 is one of the most remote objects in Charles Messier's catalog and is separated from fellow island universe NGC 1055 by at least 500,000 light-years.