NGC 4627 & 4631 (2023-05-13) – Todd's Heavenly Bodies

NGC 4627 & 4631
The Whale Galaxy in Canes Venatici

10.1″ f/4.5, Mallincam DS432cTEC with 1.5x Barlow
Exposure = 10-15 sec, Live Stacked frames = 15-25, Gain = 22 of 250

NGC 4631 the Whale Galaxy, also known as Caldwell 32, is a long and bright 10th magnitude barred-spiral. In this image the Whale appears about 10 arcminutes long by 2 arcminutes wide, lying 30 million light years away. Locating the Whale was relatively straightforward with high gain / short exposure video; a couple of stacks of 10 and 15 second exposures captures a wealth of detail in the data, as seen here. Wispy dark dust clouds obscure the brighter regions of the galactic core seen edge-on. A 12th magnitude star lies just above the north rim of the galaxy; west (lower right) of the core a 14th magnitude star appears at the westerly extent of the arms. I don’t think there are many galaxies in the sky that compare to the amount of detail this one provides.

The faint small patch of light to the right of the Whale is NGC 4627, a companion dwarf elliptical galaxy.

North at 2 o’clock, East at 11 o’clock

NGC 4627 & 4631The Whale Galaxy in Canes Venatici

NGC 4627 & 4631
The Whale Galaxy in Canes Venatici