Perseus Galaxy Cluster by Howard Trottier
Perseus Galaxy Cluster (Howard Trottier)

Perseus Galaxy Cluster by Howard Trottier

The Abell 426 galaxy cluster contains hundreds of galaxies. It’s our winner of Photo of the Week.

Photo of the Week for November 25, 2016

This galaxy cluster, known as Abell 426, is situated just two degrees east-northeast of the famed eclipsing binary star Algol, Beta (β) Persei. Abell 426 swarms with hundreds of galaxies, but it’s a difficult visual target best attacked by those with larger telescopes under dark skies. However, its two brightest members, 12.0-magnitude NGC1275 and 12.7-magnitude NGC1272, are within range of a ten inch scope in good conditions. In our photo of the week, they are the prominent pair near the centre-left edge of the frame. Abell 426 lies at a distance of roughly 250 million light years—about 100 times farther than the Andromeda Galaxy.

Perseus Galaxy Cluster by Howard Trottier
Perseus Galaxy Cluster (Howard Trottier)

The detail-rich image above was captured by Howard Trottier at his Cabin in the Sky Observatory, located in the southern Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Howard used a PlaneWave CDK17 17 inch f/6.8 Corrected Dall-Kirkham astrographic telescope and a Apogee Alta U16M CCD camera to record 14 hours total exposure through LRGB filters.