SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Hal Heaton
Location of Photo:
SkyGems, Hakos Guest Ranch, Namibia
Date/Time of photo:
25-26 and 28-29 August, 15-17 and 22-24 November, 2022 (moonless)
Equipment:
Telescope: AG Optical Systems iDK20, imaging Dall Kirkham 0.5-m aperture (f/6.8); Camera: FLI ProLine 16803, plate scale 0.545 arcsec/px; Filters: L, R, G, B; Exposure Time: Luminance (10-min, unbinned, stacked for 90-min), Red, Green and Blue (5-min, 2x2 binning, R and B stacked for 60 mins, G for 55 mins).
Description:
The magnificent barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is one of the most observed galaxies, with more than 2000 citations in the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s ADS repository. At a distance of 19.57 ± 0.78 Mpc, this dusty Seyfert 2 gem displays strong streaming motions that transport gas along its bar into a central star-forming ring, resulting in one of the highest rates of star formation (16.9 Msun/ yr) of any “local” galaxy. New JWST observations show that the prominent yellowish center, which spans about 2.7 kpc × 2.5 kpc, contains some of the most massive young clusters in the nearby universe. Some of these may evolve into globular clusters in the future. Most of these Super Star Clusters lie in that ring, but a few are in the bar to its upper left. But stars also form along the bar outside that ring, apparently triggered by collisions of dust and molecular gas flowing inward along the streamers evident in the image as perpendicular “tributaries” intersecting the prominent dust lane, with its material. Not all of the central clusters are young though. Gas clouds flowing down the bar dissipate energy as they collide and eventually accrete onto the inner ring, but stars in that flow aren’t affected by those cloud dynamics. They continue along their ballistic orbits and overshoot the nucleus, producing a population of older clusters outside the far side of the ring. Many of these features can be seen in this new cropped image, which spans a field-of-view that is 18.96 arcmin on a side. North is up, and East is to the left.
