Antennae Galaxies Extreme Deep Field - 75 Hours

Antennae Galaxies collaboration: Ultra-Deep High Resolution View

The Deepest and Highest Resolution View of the Entire Antennae Galaxies

This image is a collaboration between astrophotographers Federico Pelliccia of Italy and Rolf Wahl Olsen of New Zealand and shows an ultra-deep and detailed view of the famous Antennae colliding galaxies in Corvus.

The image was constructed from a number of sources: First a mosaic of panels from the 8.2m Subaru telescope was very patiently put together by Federico Pelliccia. This data was subsequently blended with Rolf Wahl Olsen's Antennae Galaxies Extreme Deep Field - 75 Hours to bring out the faint tidal streams and large scale structures which was not present in the high resolution Subaru data and this deep image also provided the colour information. The core was further enhanced by overlaying an extremely detailed frame from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Together this data represents the deepest and highest resolution view available to date covering the entire Antennae galaxies.

Image Details

Data: Subaru, NAOJ & NASA/ESA/Hubble & Rolf Wahl Olsen
Processing: Federico Pelliccia & Rolf Wahl Olsen
RA 12h 01m 53.30s, Dec -18° 52' 31.37"
Pixel scale: 0.2"/pixel
Field radius: 0.26 degrees

Optical systems

Subaru Telescope
8.2m f/1.8 Ritchey–Chrétien
Exposure: 20 x 5 minutes

Hubble space Telescope
2.4m f/24 Ritchey–Chrétien
The Hubble image uses visible and near-infrared observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), along with some of the previously-released observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

Rolf Wahl Olsen
Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Exposure: LRGB 54:7:7:7 hours, total 75 hours @ -25C
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Antennae Galaxies Extreme Deep Field - 75 Hours

Antennaeultradeepcollaboration