A Black Hole at work
in the galaxy NGC 1097
This is one of my favourite galaxies NGC 1097, a fine example of a spiral-barred
galaxy. This galaxy is about 45-Million light years away in the southern
constellation of Fornax and is accompanied by a companion galaxy NGC 1097A. A
very large black hole is thought to exist at the core of this galaxy, and this
image reveals the feeding process of the black hole. You can see large amounts
of matter spiralling into toward the core. This image ~25 arc-minutes wide.
The following images are enlargements of the core region which was masked to reveal details. At the very centre of the galaxy we can see a bright yellowish object surrounded by a dark area which appears to be the black hole's immediate zone of influence. The bright bluish ring are massive star forming regions surrounding the black hole. A prominent lane of dark matter can be seen running diagonally from top right to centre image. This dark matter is making its way to the galaxy core where it seems to spiral around the star forming region before it eventually is consumed by the black hole.
Image Details
| Telescope | 304mm f/5 reflector telescope with coma corrector, hand guided. |
| Camera |
Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel. |
| Exposures | Wide Field View: 3 x 5 minute
exposures @ ISO200. Core Region: 3 x 90 sec. exposures @ ISO1600. |
| Total Exposure time | 15 minutes. |
| Sky Conditions | Excellent. Seeing: 9.3/10 Wind: 0/10 Moisture: 0/10. |
| Ambient Temperature | 16° C. |
| Notes | Used Baader MPCC |
(C) Copyright 2005 Paul Mayo.
paulm@skylab.com.au