CG 4 God’s Hand Nebula

NGC 454 is a pair of interacting galaxies located 150 million light years away in the constellation Phoenix. John Herschel discovered it on October 5, 1834. It was described by Dreyer as "very faint, small, round, brighter middle." NGC 454 consists of a large elliptical galaxy that had been destoyed by the merging. And the pair also contains a bluish gas-rich irregular galaxy. The irregular galaxy may also have caused a trail of hot blue stars in the right of the image. The elliptical galaxy is on the left and the irregular galaxy is on the right. The trail is also located on the right.

Data/Processing Attribution

Data was provided by Adam Block and I did its processing only.

Distances/Size

Distance to the object- 3.2 million light years; angular size in the sky is about 71’ X 42’ (minutes); size of the galaxy is about 61,000 light years in diameter

Equipment

Mount-Software Bisque Paramount MX+ GEM; Scope- Takahashi, 106 mm aperture, 382mm focal length; Camera- QHY600 M Pro.

Observatory

Telescope Live, IC Astronomical Observatory, Spain.

Exposure

LRGB filters, total exposure- 15 hours 20 min.