NGC 5850 (May 18, 2012)

This galaxy is a rather difficult target.  Its central bar is fairly bright, but the ring and outer spiral arms are diffuse and difficult to separate from the skyglow above my suburban home.

The galaxy is interesting both because of its morphology and because it appears to have developed asymmetry as a result of its encounter with its larger neighbor to the northwest, NGC 5846, which can be seen glowing at the bottom edge of my image (in which north is to the right).

My favorite image of NGC 5850 comes from the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter and is linked here.  Ah, what one can do with a 24" scope on top of a mountain.

NGC 5850 is between 58 and 93 million light years away.  Most distance estimates to the apparent neighbor galaxy, NGC 5846, are closer to the larger number.

Trees and dew limited my exposure time to just over 3.6 hours.  The image may improve quite a bit if I double that on a later night.

Telescope: Orion 10" f/4.7 Newtonian and Astro-Tech Coma Corrector (eff. at f/5.17)
Camera and Exposure: 31x7' thru the SXVF-H9
Filter: Hutech IDAS-LPS2
Guiding: SX Lodestar and SX OAG
Mount: Takahashi NJP
Software: Nebulosity, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS3
Location: The Woodlands, TX