About image
NGC 2146 is a spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis constellation: its angular size is 6.0’x4.5’ and its apparent magnitude is 11.4, with an estimated distance of 70 million light years.
The galaxy's most conspicuous feature is the dusty lanes of a spiral arm that runs in a north-south direction (north is on the left side of the image) across the bright core and then fans out into dusty strips at the southern end.
Another blue spiral arm is visible above the core, departing from the plane of the dust lane.
This complex morphology could be explained by the interaction of NGC 2146 with another galaxy: one possible candidate could be the small spiral NGC 2146A which is anyway out of the frame of this image.
This close encounter is credited with the relatively high rates of star formation that qualify NGC 2146 as a starburst galaxy.
Technical data
Optic GSO RC12 Truss - Aperture
304mm, focal lenght 2432mm, f/8
Mount 10Micron GM2000 HPSII
Camera ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro with filter wheel 7 positions
Filters Astrodon Gen2
E-Serie Tru-Balance 50mm unmounted LRGB
Guiding system ZWO OAG-L with guide camera ASI 174MM
Exposure details L 47x300" bin3 -15C
R 18x300" bin3 -15C
G 18x300" bin3 -15C
B 18x300" bin3 -15C
all gain 100
Total integration 8h25'
Acquisition Voyager, PHD2
Processing Pixinsight 1.8,
Photoshop CS5, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator
SQM-L 21.00
Location Promiod (Aosta
Valley, Italy), own remote observatory
Date 16/17/18 December 2023