This is an edgewise spiral with a strange demarcation between splotchy and smooth in the lower left quarter or so of the galaxy. One can see clearly in this Chandra image that star formation is ongoing to the right and quiet to the left of the line.
At the upper left corner against the edge is NGC 3844. Two bright elliptical galaxies, NGC 3841 (smaller, above) and NGC 3842 (larger, lower) are along the left edge of the frame.
For some reason the targeted object listed in the ESO's archive was "Massimo's Office". It is centered on the small galaxy directly above UGC 6697's nucleus. I haven't been able to figure out exactly why it was called that, but it might have something to do with Massimo Tarenghi, who retired last year.
Red: R band (FORS.1999-03-15T04:51:58.709)
Green: V band (FORS.1999-03-11T05:18:39.391)
Blue: B band (FORS.1999-03-15T04:35:05.181)
North is up.
Tags: UGC 6697 ESO FORS FORS1 VLT European Southern Observatory Massimo Massimo's Office Abell 1367 NGC 3844
Again, I am learning to use ESO's public data archive. I am still trying to refine a strategy for searching for things to process. So far I've also managed to accidentally download a batch of spectrographs along with some other promising objects which turned out to not have nearly enough exposure time. This was the nicest one.
Here, a faded supernova known as SN 1198BW was the target. If you click that link you can see where the supernova was because there is an arrow pointing to it in a different observation.
Reading the proposal abstract, I understand this was done to search for evidence of a massive star collapsing into a black hole.
Hubble was also used to look at this galaxy.
These data were collected by ESO's EFOSC2 instrument at La Silla. Wideband infrared, red, and green filters were assigned to red, green, and blue channels. The two larger galaxies were sharpened using a high pass filter set to overlay mode.
Red: I band (EFOSC.1999-08-10T00:21:40.119)
Green: R band (EFOSC.1999-08-10T00:00:54.953)
Blue: V band (EFOSC.1999-08-09T23:40:11.466)
North is up.
Tags: ESO galaxy supernova SN 1998BW black hole La Silla EFOSC2 EFOSC/2.9
Something a little different. Instead of Hubble, this came from ESO. Specifically, from Paranal's FORS1 instrument. In 2010, ESO ran a Hidden Treasures contest just like the Hubble contest. First prize was a trip to Paranal. What!? I'm sorry I missed the contest completely! Anyway, this same galaxy (same data, too) has been featured on their site before so it isn't a hidden treasure itself, but it's been in the news lately.
Not knowing how to use ESO's public archive but wanting to learn, I ended up searching for this galaxy. The first rule of ESO's archive is there are no thumbnails. You just kind of guess what's there based on the coordinates and the exposure time, download the files en masse, and then browse their content on your own computer. You don't even get footprints! There is an xml file which you can open with Aladin which will plot a few dots for you, presumably at the coordinates the telescope was aimed at. Being a complete newbie, just seeing coordinates was not very helpful. I'm unfamiliar with the instruments so I don't know how much area they typically cover. I'm also a visual person if that wasn't obvious enough so working from just numbers takes extra effort.
Once I got the data sorted out, processing it is about the same as dealing with Hubble's. You have to clean up little black spots and things which look like hairs and dust. Each quarter of the image must be adjusted to match one another. Brighter stars bleed. Interestingly, the diffraction pattern (the colorful spikes seen around bright stars) is a bit different from what I've come to expect.
Wideband red, green, and blue filters were used to compose the image.
Red: R Band, VLT / FORS1
Green: V Band, VLT / FORS1
Blue: B Band, VLT / FORS1
North is NOT up. It is 20° clockwise from up.
Tags: interacting galaxy huge ESO FORS1 Paranal VLT Very Large Telescope European Southern Observatory NGC 6872 6872
This nebula's resemblance to a waterfall is uncanny. With the right filters and framing, it looks just like one. Of course, with these colors maybe it's more of a lavafall.
This is just a small part of NGC 1999. You can see a wider view of the nebula here. I only wish that the frame extended a little bit up and left.
Red: SII + H-alpha
Green: H-alpha + V band
Blue: V band
( FORS2.1999-11-06T07:45:08.201,
FORS2.1999-11-06T08:20:05.295,
FORS2.1999-11-06T08:51:49.366 )
North is up.
Tags: HH222 Herbig-Haro Waterfall Nebula ESO European Southern Observatory FORS FORS1 VLT