A group of online astrophotographers have captured a glorious image of a galaxy 62 million lightyears from Earth.
Fornax A is one of the brightest radio galaxies in the sky, located on the edge of a galaxy cluster visible in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Fornax.
It's known to have a supermassive black hole at its centre, which is firing out material into space that interacts with the surrounding intergalactic medium, producing two huge lobes extending for thousands of lightyears.
The image was captured by a group of astrophotographers called ShaRA (Shared Remote Astrophotography), who operate remote telescopes and cameras to produce detailed images o the cosmos.
They previously captured a little-known planetary nebula called the Spin Nebula, but Fornax A is one of their more recent projects.
"We used the T2 telescope from the Chilescope service, a 50 cm f/3.8 Newtonian telescope equipped with an FLI CCD camera with 9-micrometer pixels, aimed at Fornax A," says Egidio Vergani, a founder of the ShaRA group.
"The resulting image is the product of selecting the best subs, totalling 31 hours of integration.
"Meticulous processing highlighted the tidal tails and faint structures of the galaxy, as well as revealing intricate details of the nucleus and surrounding regions partially obscured by dust.
"The photographic sessions were carried out between September and December 2024 by Team ShaRA."
Team ShaRA is made up astrophotographers Anfuso, Borghini, Curzi, Di Fusco, Fornaciari, Iorio, Ligustri, Lioce, Loro, Maffioli, Michieletto, Ravagnin, Trabuio, Vergani, Zanetti.
