NGC 1097

Is a barred spiral galaxy 50 million light years away in Fornax.There are a number of interesting features. The galaxy contains a super massive black hole 140 million times greater than our sun. The black hole is surrounded by a ring replete with new star formation.
The ring is lit by an influx of material moving towards the central bar of the galaxy. The galaxy contains four optical jets (one of which is extremely faint) that seem to emanate from the nucleus region. Studies have determined the jets are not emissions but are made up of stars. There are two satellite galaxies NGC 1097 A and B. ​​​​​​​A is a peculiar galaxy which is orbiting only 42000 light years from the center of NGC 1097 while B is a dwarf galaxy which was discovered by emissions and has not been well studied.

Imaged in LRGBHa on a Planewave CDK 24 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile. Taken with Moravian C5.

Enjoy,

SWOS Group, Mazlin, Parker, Forman, Magill, Hanson

Image below, contains over 90 hours of data, making it the longest total exposure in the history of SSRO (just a little longer than NGC 3521). The 50 hours of luminance data had an average FWHM of 1.3" before any sharpening algorithm was used.

4 dim mysterious jets emanate from the galactic center -- this image shows 2 of them -- the more obvious is at the approximate 8:30 position, and a slightly fainter one comes down from the upper left corner of the image. You can just begin to appreciate an even fainter jet originating about 180 degrees from the 8:30 jet.

The current theory is that the jets are actually the shattered remains of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy.

Telescope:16" RCOS f11.2 Planewave HD Mount

Camera: U9

Location: SSRO, Cito Chile