While we were all oohing and aahing over the Southern Lights on Saturday night I had my trusty Dwarfii with me. We'd been joined by a middle aged lady with a cellphone and enthusiasm but no knowledge, so between Aurora visits I cast about for an interesting galaxy to show her.
Rob suggested Centaurus A. This amazing celestial spectacle might be a spiral galaxy colliding with a larger elliptical galaxy, and there's a relativistic jet emitting from the supermassive black hole in the middle of it - heady stuff.
What is known for certain, from the party observing on Saturday night was that it looks a lot more like a hamburger than the galaxy nicknamed the Hamburger Galaxy ( NGC 3628 looks more like a hotdog to me) - specifically something from the Hungry Jack's / Burger King stable.
So I'm going to call it the Aussieburger Galaxy. It's possible that the supermassive black hole is the beetroot. We could definitely see the sesame seeds and the pickles.
This image is less than 200 frames, but with a bit of tweaking in Google photos it's acceptable viewing, and a bit of fun. I think the cloud coming in might have halted my stacking. I'd like to revisit this one again soon.
And the nice lady who'd wandered down to get a shot of the aurora with her old iphone? With the help of some advice and my monopod she caught it, and apparently is all fired up to get a Dwarfii of her own, and we have already set a stardate with her this week. Lovely!
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