Date: 29th Oct 1987 Time: 00:15 UT Exposure: 45 min @ f4.5 Equipment: 300mm FL f4.5 telephoto lens (Zenith) Film: Kodak Tec Pan 2415 Developer: D19 for 8 min Site: Prestwich, Manchester, England Conditions: V.Clear Ref: A24-2Notes:
The camera (Zenith) was mounted on a home-made equatorial drive.
Guiding was undertaken with a 50mm refractor.
The width of this photo is one degree across.
NCG 147 is quite a challenge for an amateur to photograph, as its surface brightness is very low. It has a total brightness of about mag 12. The galaxy is not shown in too much detail on this photo (centre of photo) but at least it is recorded and I am very pleased with the result, considering I used a telephoto lens. (Note. I recommend saving the image to disk and viewing it with an image viewer such Lview, as the browser may not show it very well)
NGC 147 is a member of the local group of galaxies and is actually a companion of the Andromeda Galaxy M31. It can be resolved into millions of stars by very large telescopes such as the 200". Another galaxy near by in the sky is NGC 185.
Michael Oates.