NGC5866 in the H_alpha filter

Some of you might have noticed this week that we have cleared some space in the queue to allow a couple of students to take data for their Astronomical Observational Techniques class.

Jason Leszczewicz, a Physics major at WKU, took this image of galaxy NGC 5866 for his project to determine the star formation rates of a sample of galaxies. This image is a raw 300s exposure taken in the H_alpha_continuum (6444A) filter.

NGC 5866 (also called the Spindle Galaxy or Messier 102) is a relatively bright lenticular or spiral galaxy in the constellation Draco. As clearly seen in this image, it’s most prominent feature is it’s edge-on dust disc.

It was so pretty I thought everyone should see it.

Let me know if you have any similarly pretty images taken with the RCT!

Thanks,

Rachel