NGC 300

 SPIRAL GALAXY IN SCULPTOR (THE APPARATUS SCULPTORIS)

(Image centered at: ra 00h:54 m / dec - 37º 41')

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ANNOTATED IMAGE 100% RESOLUTION

December 2025, Observatorio Cielos Albertnos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Spiral Galaxy

APPARENT DIAMETER:  21 x 15 arc minutes

APPARENT MAGNITUDE (V): 9

DISTANCE: 6 million light years

IMAGE INFORMATION

INSTRUMENT: Orion Optics UK 6" Newtonian with Ultra Grade Optics working at f 4.5

CAMERA: QSI 583WS Mono Camera

MOUNT: SKY WATCHER NEQ6 Guided off axis with SX Lodestar Mono Camera 

FILTERS: Baader LRGB Set 

SKY CONDITIONS: Bortle 3 skies

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

NGC 300 (also known as Caldwell 70 or the Sculptor Pinwheel Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. It was discovered on 5 August 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from Parramatta, Australia, while he was employed to make astrometric observations for a new southern star catalogue.  It is the one of five members of the Sculptor Group conformed by NGC 253; NGC 55; NGC 300; NGC 247 and NGC 7793  NGC 300 is inclined at an angle of 42° when viewed from Earth and shares many characteristics of the Triangulum Galaxy. It is about 94,000 light-years in diameter, somewhat smaller than the Milky Way, and has an estimated mass of (2.9 ± 0.2) × 1010 Milky Way masses

This galaxy is unusual for how many stars it seems that you can see. Stars are so abundantly evident in this deep exposure of the spiral galaxy NGC 300 because so many of these stars are bright blue and grouped into resolvable bright star clusters. Additionally, NGC 300 is so clear because it is one of the closest spiral galaxies to Earth, as light takes only about 6 million years to get here. Of course, galaxies are composed of many more faint stars than bright, and even more of a galaxy's mass is attributed to unseen dark matter. NGC 300 spans nearly the same amount of sky as the full moon and is visible with a small telescope toward the southern constellation of the Sculptor. (*)

(*) Text from NASA APOD essay

NGC 300 - ANNOTATED IMAGE 100% RESOLUTION

BARRED SPIRAL GALAXY IN SCULPTOR (THE HEAT GENERATOR)

(Image centered at: ra 03h:33 m / dec - 36º 08')

Image Plate Solver script version 5.6.2
===============================================================================
Referentiation matrix (world[ra,dec] = matrix * image[x,y]):
-3.91421429e-04 -1.18133114e-04 +7.98837707e-01
+1.18089829e-04 -3.91638971e-04 +2.93953689e-01
WCS transformation ....... Linear
Projection ............... Gnomonic
Projection origin ........ [1662.999249 1252.012751] px -> [RA: 0 54 59.240 Dec: -37 41 25.34]
Resolution ............... 1.472 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. 16.771 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Observation start time ... 2025-12-13 02:21:04 UTC
Observation end time ..... 2025-12-13 02:25:04 UTC
Geodetic coordinates ..... 59 52 23 W 34 49 26 S
Focal distance ........... 756.55 mm
Pixel size ............... 5.40 um
Field of view ............ 1d 21' 36.7" x 1d 1' 26.5"
Image center ............. RA: 0 54 59.240 Dec: -37 41 25.32
Image bounds:
top-left .............. RA: 0 59 00.537 Dec: -37 23 31.79
top-right ............. RA: 0 52 28.083 Dec: -37 00 07.28
bottom-left ........... RA: 0 57 33.223 Dec: -38 22 31.08
bottom-right .......... RA: 0 50 56.024 Dec: -37 58 47.88