Well, it isn’t every day that you discover something in astronomy, let alone a galaxy!

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"

If you are interested you can read the abstract and then download the paper (top right corner of the page under DOWNLOAD) here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.03815

News piece with interview: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/former-strongman-michael-sidonio-discovers-new-galaxy-20160105-gm04iz.html

Channel Seven News: http://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1172313262792805&id=108878629136279&_rdr

SBS Australian Televison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaPYwg4U5Q0&feature=youtu.be

Sky & Telescope article: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/strongman-aussie-amateur-discovers-dwarf-galaxy-010820155/

Subaru Press Release: http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2016/02/08/index.html

New Scientist article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28722-giant-galaxy-caught-tearing-apart-its-little-neighbour/

NGC 253-dw2 discovery makes list of 10 space discoveries by amateur astronomers:
http://listverse.com/2016/07/30/10-space-discoveries-made-by-amateur-astronomers/

Referenced on The Royal Societies page:
https://www.scienceaustralia.org.au/who-practices-science-in-australia/