M 83

Who knows the constellation of the water snake? Only a few in our latitudes, as it comes into view quite low on the southern horizon. It contains one of the most beautiful Milky Ways that can be observed.

From a distance of 15 million light years, this majestically beautiful
galaxy presents itself in its full expansion. As it is relatively close to us, it belongs to the so-called local galaxy group and is therefore a sister galaxy to the one in which we live. The picture shows numerous nebulous formations that appear reddish or pinkish red. These are exciting regions, comparable to the well-known Orion Nebula; they are star-forming regions in a foreign Milky Way that we can nevertheless photograph from Earth. If it could be observed with the naked eye, it would make up about 1/3 of the full moon in the night sky.

This picture was taken in cooperation with Eric Benson, one of my astrophotography friends from Australia. Eric runs a remote observatory in a light-polluted area of Australia where M83 shows up high in the sky.

Acquisition data as in all images: 20″ CDK reflector telescope, FLI CCD camera, LRGB image data. Processed in CCD Stack, Pix Insight and Photoshop. Image acquisition: Eric Benson, image processing: Dietmar Hager.

Coordinates:
RA: 13h 37m 00.9s
DC: -29° 51′ 56″

Exposure time:
60 hours