NGC 4945

 SPIRAL GALAXY IN CENTAURUS (THE HUNTER)

(Image centered at: ra 15 h:05 m / dec - 49º 28')

CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A HIGH RESOLUTION VIEW

CLICK FOR THE ANNOTATED VIEW

March - 2024, Sarandí, Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Barred Spiral Galaxy

APPARENT DIAMETER: 20 arc minutes

APPARENT MAGNITUDE (V): 9

DISTANCE: 13 Million light years

IMAGE INFORMATION

INSTRUMENT: 6" ORION OPTICS UK (Ultra Grade Optics) w/Sky Watcher Coma Corrector (0.9x) working at at f4.5

CAMERA: QHY 183 MONO

MOUNT: VIXEN GDPX, OAG with Starlight Xpress Lodestar

FILTERS: BAADER LRGB Set

SKY CONDITIONS: rural skies - Bortle 4 - SQM 20.63

EXPOSURES: LRGB (90,45,45,45)

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

NGC 4945 is part of the Centaurus Group along with NGC 5128. It is almost the size of our Milky Way and it is six times farther away than Andromeda which is our nearest spiral galaxy. NGC 4945 is  characterized by its high infrared luminosity, which also implies high levels of radiation emitted by its young and massive stars. It has an energetic Seyfert 2 nucleus that, due the dark dust, can not be directly observed by the astronomers. The high speed rotation in its core, suppose the existence of a super massive black hole which mass is about 1.6 million suns.

NGC 4945 was discovered by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop in 1826 from Parramatta New South Wales, Australia

Observes can easily find NGC 4945 since this galaxy is just 18 arc minutes from magnitude 4.83 Xi Centauri which is visible in the FOV of the annotated image below.

NGC 4945

 BARRED SPIRAL GALAXY IN CENTAURUS

ANNOTATED IMAGE