Blade and Pearl Galaxy (NGC 5746) in Virgo
NGC 5746 is a massive edge-on system that belongs to the Virgo-Libra Cloud of Galaxies. It has a whopping linear diameter of 162’000 light-years at a distance of 96 million ly. It is an intermediate-type spiral with a very small, bright nucleus in a moderately small, though bright, peanut-shaped bulge.
The galaxy in the upper right corner is NGC 5740 shining at 11.8 mag with an apparent diameter of 2.8′ x 1.5′.
[description from O’Meara]
Details
Telescope:
RCOS 20″ f/8.5
Mount:
Paramount ME
Camera:
Apogee U16M
Filters:
Astrodon Gen2
Exposure:
LRGB 620:220:200:200 min.
Location:
Sierra Remote, California
Author:
© Martin Rusterholz, Astrophotographer
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Hello, my name is Martin Rusterholz. I’m a Swiss amateur astrophotographer living near Zurich, the biggest town in Switzerland. My interest in astronomy started when I was 16. At that time, I built my first Newtonian telescope and mount. I studied physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) which was the only study including at least some aspects of astronomy and astrophysics.
“Looking at the nights sky is an experience touching everybody deeply inside, something common to all human beings independent to the language spoken by the individuals”.
Deep-sky astrophotography is my passion.