NGC 3184

Spiral Galaxy in the Constellation Ursa Major

NGC 3184 is a spiral galaxy approximately 40 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, or roughly 20 times farther away than the Great Andromeda Galaxy. This galaxy has striking blue spiral arms comprised of millions of hot, young stars with many pink star forming regions of hot ionized gas and dust.  It has two major star-forming H-II regions named NGC 3180 and NGC 3181.  NGC 3184 has a diameter of approximately 119,000 light-years, making it roughly the same diameter as our own Milky Way galaxy.

NGC 3184 is notable for its high abundance of heavy elements and (SN 1999gi) that was a magnitude 14 Type II supernova detected on December 9, 1999.  Other supernovae in NGC 3184 include 1921B (mag 13.5), 1921C (mag 11) and 1937F (mag 13.5).

Also shown in the field of view to the lower left is the very small and faint magnitude 17.5 galaxy PGC 2181848.  It is moving away from us at an incredible 9.8% of the speed of light, or 18,000 miles per *second*!  

Image Information  Courtesy of Wikipedia, Kitt Peak NOAO,  and SEDS

Image Details:

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  • Instrument:  Planewave Instruments CDK 12.5 at native focal length of f/8 (2544mm)
  • Mount:  AP1200GTOCP3
  • Image Scale:  0.90 arc-seconds per pixel after processing
    Camera: SBIG ST-2000XM with AO8 Adaptive Optics and CFW10 Color Filter Wheel using Custom Scientific LRGB filters 
    Filters & Exposure Times:
    • L:  24 x 5 minutes binned 1 x 1
    • R:  24 x 5 minutes binned 2 x 2
      G:  12 x 5 minutes binned 2 x 2
      B:  19 x 5 minutes binned 2 x 2
    • Multiple Luminance Layering in Photoshop (technique as described by Rob Gendler)
    • Total equivalent unbinned exposure time of 9.25 hours
    Software: Maxim DL/CCD, CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS2, RC Astro Gradient X-Terminator
    Location:  C.A.A.S. East Observatory, Little Rock, AR., El. 650ft
    Date: February 26th, 2012

Wade Van Arsdale
Little Rock, AR., USA
May 1st, 2012