The Sculptor Galaxy (also known as the Silver Coin, Silver Dollar Galaxy, NGC 253, or Caldwell 65) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. The Sculptor Galaxy is a starburst galaxy, which means that it is currently undergoing a period of intense star formation. The galaxy was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783 during one of her systematic comet searches. About half a century later, John Herschel observed it using his 18-inch metallic mirror reflector at the Cape of Good Hope. He wrote: “very bright and large (24′ in length); a superb object…. Its light is somewhat streaky, but I see no stars in it except 4 large and one very small one, and these seem not to belong to it, there being many near…” In 1961, Allan Sandage wrote in the Hubble Atlas of Galaxies that the Sculptor Galaxy is “the prototype example of a special subgroup of Sc systems….photographic images of galaxies of the group are dominated by the dust pattern. Dust lanes and patches of great complexity are scattered throughout the surface. Spiral arms are often difficult to trace…. The arms are defined as much by the dust as by the spiral pattern.” Bernard Y. Mills, working out of Sydney, discovered that the Sculptor Galaxy is also a fairly strong radio source. As one of the brightest galaxies in the sky, the Sculptor Galaxy can be seen through binoculars and is near the star Beta Ceti. It is considered one of the most easily viewed galaxies in the sky after the Andromeda Galaxy. The Sculptor Galaxy is located at the center of the Sculptor Group, one of the nearest groups of galaxies to the Milky Way. The Sculptor Galaxy (the brightest galaxy in the group and one of the intrinsically brightest galaxies in the vicinity of ours, only surpassed by the Andromeda Galaxy and the Sombrero Galaxy) and the companion galaxies NGC 247, PGC 2881, PGC 2933, Sculptor-dE1, and UGCA 15 form a gravitationally-bound core near the center of the group. Most other galaxies associated with the Sculptor Group are only weakly gravitationally bound to this core.

Telescope: Planewave CDK17 (FR) f4.5
Mount: Astro Physics 1600GTO
Camera: QHY16200A/ Integral FW
Guider: Agena Starguide II / SBIG STi

L: 43×10 mins = 430 mins, R: 24×10 mins = 240 mins, G: 23×10 mins = 230 mins, B: 20×10 mins = 200 mins

Total Imaging Time: 18h 20m

Data Imaged remotely over 5 nights during October 2021.
Imaged from Observatorio El Sauce, Chile, in partnership with Fred Espenak.
Data acquisition & Processing by David Churchill.

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