NGC 3184
NGC 3184 lies in the Constellation Ursa Major. Its a spiral galaxy nearly 25 million light years distant according to some estimates. The galaxy is noted for blue spiral arms dotted with pinkish star forming regions. To see a better view of the pink star forming regions check out the 1600x1200 image link above. The above image taken with a 4" refractor is a crop of a much larger field of view containing the bright orange giant star Tania Australis shining at magnitude 3 and 250 light years away. Tania Australis is thought to have used up all the hydrogen in its core and is now fusing helium with will eventually fuse to carbon. The link to the uncropped image shows this very bright orange star. Also within the image are hundreds of galaxies and two galaxy clusters, one near the lower left corner. These galaxies are probably hundreds of millions light years distant. Other larger and fainter galaxies are peppered throughout the cropped image.
- Optics : Stellarvue SVQ100 Triplet Refractor
- Mount: Mountain Instruments MI-250
- Camera: QSI 583
- Filters: Astrodon LRGB and Ha filter set
- Exposure: L: 460 R:290 G: 300 B:300 Ha:180
- Camera/Mount Control: Maxim DL 5.23, CCD Commander
- Processing: PixInsight 1.8, Photoshop CS6
- Location: Stark Bayou Observatory, Ocean Springs, MS
- Date: April 14
