Australian Michael Sidonio is “a competitive strongman” and also a first rate amateur astrophotographer who spotted a previously unheralded dwarf galaxy:
- “Strongman” Aussie Discovers Dwarf Galaxy – Sky & Telescope
- Former strongman Michael Sidonio discovers new galaxy – Canberra Times
- [1512.03815] Satellite accretion in action: a tidally disrupting dwarf spheroidal around the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 253
From his gallery:
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NGC 253-dw2 Deep Discovery Image – Credits Michael Sidonio
As part of a professional team lead by Aaron J. Romanowsky and David Martinez-Delgardo, this is my first involvement in a scientific discovery and my first scientific paper too. The paper was accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society on Monday 21 Dec 2015.
The galaxy, in this case a Dwarf Spheroidal, was first discovered in a deep image I did of NGC 253 using my Orion Optics UK AG12 a 12″ F3.8 corrected Newtonian. This was then subsequently followed up by deep exposures by the CHART 32 team with their 32″ F7 corrected Cassegrain telescope at Cerro Tololo and then finally the Suprime-Cam on the 8m Subaru telescope was used, in sub arc sec seeing, to resolve stars and confirm the discovery and galaxy classification.
So to discover something so faint and so close to such a well researched galaxy like NGC 253 is extra special and the new galaxy is called NGC 253-dw2
The last line of the abstract is very encouraging too: “We also note the continued efficacy of small telescopes for making big discoveries”