Centaurus A (ngc5128)

This one is a definite redo at a later date. The nearly Full Moon played havoc with the background and the colour rendition in this pic, so I decided not to push the processing. Just some bare minimum adjustments and that's all. This is NGC5128, a.k.a Centaurus A, a large lenticular-elliptical galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. Lying at around 13.5million ly away (4.14Mpc, though the range in distance is from 10-16million ly), it is the main member of one group within the Centaurus A-M83 Group of galaxies, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster. It's classification as a lenticular (S0pec) or elliptical galaxy (E0pec) is made all the more confusing by the large dust lane that bisects the galaxy across its centre. It's believed to be the remnants of a smaller spiral galaxy that collided and merged with the larger galaxy some time in the past. The main body of the galaxy is around 60000ly across and is believed to weigh in at 1trillion solar masses. In the centre of the galaxy lies a putative supermassive black hole weighing around 55million solar masses, which is responsible for producing two powerful jets of material and much energy being ejected from the galaxy. Centaurus A is a powerful radio source and one of the closest radio galaxies to our own. The radio jets emanating from the galaxy are over 1million ly in length. Centaurus A is surrounded by a vast cloud of globular cluster (several thousand), some of which can be seen through amateur telescopes as tiny dots of light embedded in the halo surrounding the galaxy. The galaxy itself shines at 6.84mag and is visible to the naked eye under dark and exceptionally good conditions, about 4degrees north of Omega Centauri. Pic was taken with t68 at the Bathurst Observatory (BAT-iTelescope Network). 15x60sec subs.

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