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My sister in college at Michigan bought me an astronomy textbook by Fred Hoyle and signed it “Bill, Merry Christmas 1967, Donna”. At the time in high school, I was more fascinated by the pictures in the book than the recounting of astrohistory or the description of the organization of the universe. The two images that really caught my imagination were the centerfold color Veil Nebula and the monochrome Centaurus A (NGC5128) galaxy shots! I wondered someday if I could take pictures like that but never imagined I could do it and surpass them essentially from my backyard with amateur equipment. Never have given Centaurus A much attention as it is so far south until, come full circle, my son Chad visited my observatory last CAV safari and he chose this elusive object from my computer screen displaying TheSky 6. Of all the objects to pick from he chose this source buried in minimum 3.32 atmospheres. Since that is what he picked, we made that the second light image of the new SBIG camera. We were both shocked when we downloaded the first 15 minute luminance exposure showing the gaudy radiolobes and giant detailed starburst disk! So we collected more 1×1 Lum and 2×2 RGB data over the next 2 hours and the results are attached. Once we started researching this, we realized this is one of the most fascinating targets in our heavens (see all the links below)! The attached schematic highlights a few features including bilateral radiolobes, starburst disk, inner and outer filaments, HI clouds, blue arcs, concentric shells, x-ray knots and radio knots, to name a few! I made several animations and mouseovers to illustrate our data compared to large Earth-based telescopes and satellites. I think astronomer Fred Hoyle would be surprised at what can be done from sea level and amateur equipment shooting through 3.3 – 5 atmospheres! I know Chad enjoyed his time at the observatory. He agrees that someday, we could seriously drill down on this splendid celestial gem from a dark-site southern hemisphere venue!
http://www.williamsseaandsky.com/?page_id=6923 — our website – animation and 3 mouseovers
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/344308/pdf – Incredible article – check this out!
https://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0792.html — 4 Meter Chile Telescope -outer shells
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170309.html — Centaurus A APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151119.html — Hubble & ESO!
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120701.html — Outer Shells of NGC 5128!
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110531.html — Outer Jets of NGC 5128!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus_A#/media/File:CenA-nearIR.jpg — Near IR image – Beletsky!
https://www.eso.org/public/usa/images/eso1221a/ — MPG/ESO La Silla Chile 2.2M DEEP! showing ejecta jets!
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/108349883 — Strong Man Mike ULTRA DEEP Centaurus A panel vs. Blanco 4 Meter!
https://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Centaurus-A-Extreme-Deep-Field/i-mNgSprP — EXTREME Deepfield – 120 HOURS!!