View allAll Photos Tagged LargeMagellanicCloud
This glittering ball of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1898, which lies near the center of our galactic neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud. That dwarf galaxy hosts an extremely rich population of star clusters, making it an ideal laboratory for investigating star formation.
Discovered in November 1834 by British astronomer John Herschel, NGC 1898 has been scrutinized numerous times by @NASAHubble. Today we know that globular clusters are some of the oldest known objects in the universe and are relics of the first epochs of galaxy formation.
We already have a pretty good understanding of the Milky Way’s globular clusters. Our studies on globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies just started. Observations of NGC 1898 will help to determine whether their properties are similar to the ones in our Milky Way, or if they have different features due to being in a different cosmic environment.
This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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At the longer wavelengths of light captured by its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), Webb focuses on the area surrounding the central star cluster and unveils a very different view of the Tarantula Nebula. In this light, the young hot stars of the cluster fade in brilliance, and glowing gas and dust come forward. Abundant hydrocarbons light up the surfaces of the dust clouds, shown in blue and purple. Much of the nebula takes on a more ghostly, diffuse appearance because mid-infrared light is able to show more of what is happening deeper inside the clouds. Still-embedded protostars pop into view within their dusty cocoons, including a bright group at the very top edge of the image, left of centre.
Other areas appear dark, like in the lower-right corner of the image. This indicates the densest areas of dust in the nebula, that even mid-infrared wavelengths cannot penetrate. These could be the sites of future, or current, star formation.
MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
The Milky Way arching over the Southern Ocean, including the Large Magellanic Cloud , Small Magellanic Cloud and an iridium flare.
The beautiful country night sky filled with stars and the Large Magellanic Cloud in Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.
Another shot on a moonless night from the bottom of the Gibson Steps.
The seastacks Gog and Magog are on the far right, the core of the Milky Way is peering above the horizon on the left and Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are dead centre. The really bright start just right of centre is Canopus. It's only 310 light years away, has a radius 71 times that of the Sun and shines 10,000 times as brightly.
The brightest star Sirius is on the far right and, oh yeah, the photo is a stitch of 9 shots using Microsoft ICE.
The Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy, are typically only seen in the southern hemisphere. However, while playing around in Stellarium, I noticed that the Large Magellanic Cloud actually attains an maximum altitude of 1° above the horizon in Hawaii. Naturally I decided to try to get a photo of it.
In order to have the least atmospheric haze possible, I went up Mauna Kea. I waited for a clear night so that Halemaumau, one of the two erupting volcanoes on this island, would be in the photo too. Both objects are visible above the flank of Mauna Loa, and Saddle Road, the highway across the island between Hilo and Kona, crosses the image.
Shot on a Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 at f/2.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Red Intensifier Filter
28 x 30 seconds
ISO 3200
f/2.8
iOptron Sky Tracker
Stitched in MS ICE
This is the byproduct of some testing I did this morning on my iOptron SkyTracker which I've had collecting dust for a year or so now. The image was taken at Sullivan's Rock, just outside the Perth city limits and features the Carina Nebula (the pink splotch) and the Large Magellanic Cloud, just left of the red airglow on the bottom right. I intended doing a full panorama but ran out of time while also learning that a tracker will mess with your grid pattern while taking panoramas :) A valuable lesson for next time....
The Chandra X-ray Observatory image of this supernova remnant (also known as SNR 0505.7-6752) reveals an inner cloud of glowing iron and silicon (green and blue) surrounded by an outer blast wave (red). The outer blast wave, created during the destruction of the white dwarf star, is also seen in optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red and white).
This image is part of a collection of archiveed images made by “astronomy artist” Judy Schmidt, to help recognize #ArchivesMonth. All of the objects in this new archive collection are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, which is a small satellite galaxy to Milky Way.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
The Large Magellanic cloud shot with Canon 5DSr and 70-200mmF2.8 L .102 x30 sec exp stacked in Sequator.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is surrounded by about fifty dwarf galaxies. Most of these galaxies are only identifiable through telescopes and have been named after the constellation in which they appear on the sky (for example, Draco, Sculptor or Leo). However, the two most obvious dwarf galaxies are called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and these are easily visible to the unaided eye. Traditionally these dwarf galaxies have been thought of as satellites in orbit around the Milky Way for many billions of years. Now, however, new data from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft have shown that the majority of the dwarf galaxies are passing the Milky Way for the first time. This forces astronomers to reconsider the history of the Milky Way and how it formed, along with the nature and composition of the dwarf galaxies themselves.
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This image shows a region of space called LHA 120-N150. It is a substructure of the gigantic Tarantula Nebula. The latter is the largest known stellar nursery in the local Universe. The nebula is situated more than 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring dwarf irregular galaxy that orbits the Milky Way.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA, I. Stephens; CC BY 4.0
Credits:
Not a very good night for astronomy at Paranal, with thin clouds passing. The green light is atmospheric airglow, and the reddish light low down is from the town of Taltal, 70 miles away on the coast.
Many colourful stars are packed close together in this image of the globular cluster NGC 1805, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This tight grouping of thousands of stars is located near the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. The stars orbit closely to one another, like bees swarming around a hive. In the dense centre of one of these clusters, stars are 100 to 1000 times closer together than the nearest stars are to our Sun, making planetary systems around them unlikely.
The striking difference in star colours is illustrated beautifully in this image, which combines two different types of light: blue stars, shining brightest in near-ultraviolet light, and red stars, illuminated in red and near-infrared. Space telescopes like Hubble can observe in the ultraviolet because they are positioned above Earth’s atmosphere, which absorbs most of this wavelength, making it inaccessible to ground-based facilities.
This young globular cluster can be seen from the southern hemisphere, in the Dorado constellation, which is Portugese for dolphinfish. Usually, globular clusters contain stars which are born at the same time; however, NGC 1805 is unusual as it appears to host two different populations of stars with ages millions of years apart. Observing such clusters of stars can help astronomers understand how stars evolve, and what factors determine whether they end their lives as white dwarfs, or explode as supernovae.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Kalirai; CC BY 4.0
This is where we slept for the week. It was just lovely, we did not want to leave.
www.barkalafarm.com.au/the-old-schoolhouse/
Canon 60d
11mm
30 sec exp
f/3.5
ISO 3200
Nikon D5100
16 x 25 seconds
11mm
ISO 5000
f3.2
16 shot panorama of the 'other end' of the Milky Way or the tail end of the core if you prefer, stretching from Rigil Kent on the right to Auriga on the left. This is the summer view across Southern Hemisphere skies with the Magellanic Clouds also prominent.
This is the brightest supernova remnant in either the LMC or its galactic cousin, the Small Magellanic Cloud. N132D also stands out because it belongs to a rare class of supernova remnants that have relatively high levels of oxygen. Scientists think most of the oxygen we breathe came from explosions similar to this one. Here, Chandra X-ray Observatory data are shown in purple and green and Hubble Space Telescope data are shown in red.
This image is part of a collection of archiveed images made by “astronomy artist” Judy Schmidt, to help recognize #ArchivesMonth. All of the objects in this new archive collection are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, which is a small satellite galaxy to Milky Way.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
Just as people of the same age can vary greatly in appearance and shape, so do collections of stars or stellar aggregates. New observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggest that chronological age alone does not tell the complete story when it comes to the evolution of star clusters.
Previous research on the formation and evolution of star clusters has suggested that these systems tend to be compact and dense when they form, before expanding with time to become clusters of both small and large sizes. New Hubble observations in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy have increased our understanding of how the size of star clusters in the LMC changes with time.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA; CC BY 4.0
Worth zooming in.
The large magellanic cloud plus a side show of a couple of satellites. This is a single photo, single exposure, single composition. Taken with my 85 mm / F1.8 portrait lens. Not bad for a 2 sec exposure at 16000 ISO!
Processed in DxO PhotoLab 3.1 to reduce some noise, adjust contrast and darks and eliminate purple fringing. Photo taken from my driveway during the Covid-19 lock down period. Though I live in a rural area it is only about 10 km from Hamilton City.
Went out for a short 2 hour drive last night, just far enough to see the Milky Way and some light pollution. I would've spent more time out but it was bloody freezing! Winter is coming, bring it on... just wait for me to grab my gloves :)
In September of 2017, fellow nightscape photographer Ian Williams invited me to visit him in Canberra, Australia’s capital city, for a night sky photography session. Following one of Ian’s nightscape workshops, we headed south through the town of Cooma, eventually stopping in one of the area’s characteristic rocky fields.
Despite the near-zero temperature, we spent a few hours making the most of the ultra-dark and mostly cloudless night, shooting as many compositions as we could before our fingers almost froze. Although I’ve previously shared other shots from that night, the image I’m posting today has been languishing in the depths of my hard drive for nearly four years.
As well as the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way, I included Ian and his ghostly double in my 38-frame panorama. The galaxies M31 and M33 are also in the picture but are almost washed out by the yellow light-bloom from Cooma, 26 km distant (16 mi).
Here are the settings and equipment I used to shoot each of the 38 frames that make up the panorama. Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens @ f/2.8, using an exposure time of 15 seconds @ ISO 6400.
Another amazing night with bright airglow and a hint of southern borealis or wishful thinking. Anyhow those colours certainly weren't visible to the naked eye. But you quickly realise why they call it the Milky Way when you're out here, it is REALLY bright up there! Panorama consisting of 18 photographs, a steady tripod, wide lens and three woolen jumpers.
Katoomba Valley. Taken on my trip to the Blue Mountains last weekend west of Sydney, Australia. In this part of the sky we can clearly see what Ferdinad Magellan noticed in the sky when circumnavigating the globe (1519-1522) now known as the 'Large Magellanic Cloud' but really it is a Dwarf Galaxy said to be orbiting our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Above the black patch in the middle of the Milky Way (know as the coalsack) are two bright stars, the brighter one above is Alpha Centauri a binary system 4 light years from earth and said to be the closest neighbouring star to our solar system.
The green hue below on the horizon is an optical phenomena known as airglow.
Even at night, with only the feeble photons of atmospheric airglow to light the landscape, you can see that the water in this agricultural dam is a very unappealing colour. The still air on the night left the pond's surface undisturbed, offering me a mirrored but muted view of the treeline, the Milky Way and the light coming from the planet Jupiter. Despite the dirtiness of the pool's contents, you can still see some hues of starlight reflected in the water.
The Magellanic Cloud galaxies are conspicuous in the top-left corner of my panorama, keeping station as they travel through the Local Group of galaxies with our marvellous & majestic Milky Way. I've mentioned that Jupiter is one of the lights shining from the dark mirror, and you can see the source of that light in the sky above the dusty stretch of our home galaxy, as well as the planet Saturn up and to the right of Jupiter's bright beacon. It's frustrating that the clouds conspired to keep me from photographing the stars and planets during last weekend's New Moon period. With very few chances left to shoot the Milky Way's core region as the year draws to a close, so I'll be relying on my trove of shots from previous expeditions–like this one–to keep me posting here.
I created this panoramic photo by shooting thirteen overlapping single-frame images, then merging them using stitching software on my Mac. For each of those individual shots, I used my Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera set to an exposure time of 25 seconds @ ISO 6400 and fitted with a Samyang 14mm f/2.4 lens @ f/2.4.
Alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is now complete. After full review, the observatory has been confirmed to be capable of capturing crisp, well-focused images with each of its four powerful onboard science instruments.
Upon completing the seventh and final stage of telescope alignment, the team held a set of key decision meetings and unanimously agreed that Webb is ready to move forward into its next and final series of preparations, known as science instrument commissioning. This process of setting up and testing the instruments will take about two months before scientific operations begin in the summer.
The alignment of the telescope across all of Webb’s instruments can be seen in a series of images that captures the observatory’s full field of view.
Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus. For this test, Webb pointed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, providing a dense field of hundreds of thousands of stars across all the observatory’s sensors.
The sizes and positions of the images shown here depict the relative arrangement of each of Webb’s instruments in the telescope’s focal plane, each pointing at a slightly offset part of the sky relative to one another.
Webb’s three imaging instruments are NIRCam (images shown here at a wavelength of 2 microns), NIRISS (image shown here at 1.5 microns), and MIRI (shown at 7.7 microns, a longer wavelength revealing emission from interstellar clouds as well as starlight).
ESA's NIRSpec is a spectrograph rather than imager but can take images, such as the 1.1 micron image shown here, for calibrations and target acquisition. The dark regions visible in parts of the NIRSpec data are due to structures of its microshutter array, which has several hundred thousand controllable shutters that can be opened or shut to select which light is sent into the spectrograph.
Lastly, Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor tracks guide stars to point the observatory accurately and precisely; its two sensors are not generally used for scientific imaging but can take calibration images such as those shown here. This image data is used not just to assess image sharpness but also to precisely measure and calibrate subtle image distortions and alignments between sensors as part of Webb’s overall instrument calibration process.
The optical performance of the telescope continues to be better than the engineering team’s most optimistic predictions. Webb’s mirrors are now directing fully focused light collected from space down into each instrument, and each instrument is successfully capturing images with the light being delivered to them. The image quality delivered to all instruments is “diffraction-limited,” meaning that the fineness of detail that can be seen is as good as physically possible given the size of the telescope. From this point forward the only changes to the mirrors will be very small, periodic adjustments to the primary mirror segments.
Now, the Webb team will turn its attention to science instrument commissioning. Each instrument is a highly sophisticated set of detectors equipped with unique lenses, masks, filters, and customised equipment that helps it perform the science it was designed to achieve. The specialised characteristics of these instruments will be configured and operated in various combinations during the instrument commissioning phase to fully confirm their readiness for science. With the formal conclusion of telescope alignment, key personnel involved with the commissioning of each instrument have arrived at the Mission Operations Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA, and some personnel involved with telescope alignment have concluded their duties.
Though telescope alignment is complete, some telescope calibration activities remain: As part of scientific instrument commissioning, the telescope will be commanded to point to different areas in the sky where the total amount of solar radiation hitting the observatory will vary to confirm thermal stability when changing targets. Furthermore, ongoing maintenance observations every two days will monitor the mirror alignment and, when needed, apply corrections to keep the mirrors in their aligned locations.
Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and CSA.
Credits: NASA/STScI
This wide-field view captures the pair of nebulae NGC 2014 and NGC 2020 in the constellation of Dorado (The Swordfish). These two glowing clouds of gas, in the centre of the frame, are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies. Both are sculpted by powerful winds from hot young stars.
This view was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.
This image is part of the Hubble 30th anniversary, learn more here.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin; CC BY 4.0
Henize 70 (N70) is a “superbubble” nebula (300 ly) located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Hints that the shape of Henize 70 was due to the shock waves of an old supernova explosion (yet to be confirmed). Its shape was also sculpted by a small group of very hot O and B stars located at the center.
Ha emission is strong, consistent with its potential supernova origin. OIII emission is also intense, located in the central region of the bubble (blueish in this picture).
A “superbubble” is a very hot nebula (several million degrees) formed by the explosion of massive stars having more than 8 solar masses. These stars cause powerful stellar winds whose energy is located inside the bubble.
HOO Palette version (HOO): H-Alpha mapped to red, OIII mapped to green and blue channels. While the colors in this image are not the true colors, the narrowband filters were used create the nebula color and broadband filters were used to create the stars’ color.
RA 05h 42m 38.3s
DEC -67° 47’ 51.0 »
ORIENTATION Up is 10.7 degrees E of N
CONSTELLATION Dorado
DISTANCE 170,000 ly
Captured February 2022
Fiel Of view: 19.3 x 19.3 arcmin
Total integration time of 28 hours.
Technical Details
Data acquisition: Martin PUGH
Processing: Nicolas ROLLAND
El Sauce Observatory, Rio Hurtado, Chile
Ha: 23*1800s
OIII: 21*1800s
L: 12*900s
R: 4*900s
G: 4*900s
B: 4*900s
Optics: Planewave 17“ CDK @ F6.8
Mount: Paramount ME
CCD: SBIG STXL-11002 (AOX)
The Large Magellanic Cloud is visible in Hawaii for a short period of time. This was captured from Mauna Kea looking towards the southern sky and Mauna Loa. Halemaumau crater, an active volcano is creating the bright glow in the clouds and sky. The path of light is from car headlamps driving across Saddle Road, the road that goes between the two mountains. The VLBA Radio Telescope is visible in the far left.
To reduce noise, I manually aligned and stacked 6 images for the sky and 36 images for the foreground.
A few days back I posted a shot of the Large Magellanic Cloud hanging in the sky on its own. Tonight I have one for you of the Large cloud with its companion, the Small Magellanic Cloud, as they dominate the dark sky between above a field of corn near Bodalla, New South Wales, Australia. I’ve been to this location several times over the past three years and not noticed the power lines above the field. It was only after I checked the shot on my camera’s LCD that I noticed the three dark streaks scribed across the lower part of the scene. I detest power lines in my shots as much as I do clouds!
The power lines don’t ruin the shot, I guess, and are coincidentally positioned underneath the Small Magellanic Cloud and top and bottom of the globular star cluster 47 Tucanae. The cluster looks like a large star in this photo but is in fact a ball of approximately one million stars that are orbiting together in a roughly spherical arrangement. Down and to the right of the Small Magellanic Cloud you can see a blue-white star, Achernar. This is actually a binary system, with the second star informally known as “Achernar B”. The pair are located about 140 light-years from Earth. These four objects are very familiar sights to watchers of the southern night skies.
This single-shot image was taken with a Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Rokinon 24mm @ f/2.4, with a 15-second exposure @ ISO 6400.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the nearest galaxies to our Milky Way, as viewed by ESA’s Gaia satellite using information from the mission’s second data release.
This view is not a photograph but has been compiled by mapping the total amount of radiation detected by Gaia in each pixel, combined with measurements of the radiation taken through different filters on the spacecraft to generate colour information.
The image is dominated by the brightest, most massive stars, which greatly outshine their fainter, lower-mass counterparts. In this view, the bar of the LMC is outlined in great detail, along with individual regions of star formation like the giant 30 Doradus, visible just above the centre of the galaxy.
Acknowledgement: Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC); A. Moitinho / A. F. Silva / M. Barros / C. Barata, University of Lisbon, Portugal; H. Savietto, Fork Research, Portugal.
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC
This scene of stellar creation, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, sits near the outskirts of the famous Tarantula Nebula, the largest known stellar nursery in the local universe. Called LHA 120-N 150, this cloud of gas and dust, along with the many young and massive stars surrounding it, is the perfect laboratory to study the origin of massive stars. The nebula is situated more than 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf irregular galaxy that orbits our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Also known as 30 Doradus or NGC 2070, the Tarantula Nebula owes its name to the arrangement of bright patches that somewhat resemble the legs of a tarantula. It measures nearly 1,000 light-years across. Its proximity, the favorable inclination of the Large Magellanic Cloud, and the absence of intervening dust make the Tarantula Nebula one of the best laboratories in which to study the formation of stars, in particular massive stars. This nebula has an exceptionally high concentration of massive stars, often referred to as super star clusters.
Astronomers have studied LHA 120-N 150 to learn more about the environment in which massive stars form. Theoretical models of the formation of massive stars suggest that they should form within clusters of stars; but observations indicate that up to 10 percent of them also formed in isolation. The giant Tarantula Nebula with its numerous substructures is the perfect laboratory in which to resolve this puzzle as in it massive stars can be found both as members of clusters and in isolation.
With the help of Hubble, astronomers are trying to find out whether the isolated stars visible in the nebula truly formed alone or just moved away from their stellar siblings. However, such a study is not an easy task; young stars, before they are fully formed — especially massive ones — look very similar to dense clumps of dust.
LHA 120-N 150 contains several dozen of these objects. They are a mix of unclassified sources — some probably young stellar objects and others probably dust clumps. Only detailed analysis and observations will reveal their true nature, and that will help to finally solve the unanswered question of the origin of massive stars.
Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, I. Stephens
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Corunna Lake is on the far south coast of my home state of New South Wales, Australia. From dawn until dusk during the hotter months of our year–October through until April–the lake’s surface is stirred by the wakes from dozens of watercraft, be they petrol, electric or human-powered boats and the water-skiers towed behind some of them.
Come nightfall though, and especially now during winter, it’s only the occasional splash from fish jumping that ruffles the top of the lake. With no boats, no breeze, no clouds and the moon having set earlier, last Saturday evening (July 6th) at Corunna Lake was a gift to the keen nightscape photographer. My LED lamp illuminated the rocks under the water at the lake’s edge, and the stars and atmospheric airglow lit up the sky. There was a tiny amount of movement in the water which has made the reflected stars look like they’re making a slight circular movement. My photo has captured the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds suspended above the southeastern shoreline. You can see the southern end of the Milky Way’s central band parallel to the right-hand edge of the frame.
There are several other features of this night’s sky that I have highlighted for you on the marked-up version of this image, available by swiping to the left here on Instagram.
I used my Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 14mm f/2.4 lens @ f/2.8 to capture this scene, using an exposure time of 25 seconds @ ISO 6400.
I shot this photo last Thursday night, 27th February. The only clouds visible were the two galaxies you see in the picture, known as the Magellanic Clouds. Astronomers classify these two blobs of light as dwarf galaxies, and they travel through space with our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
The Magellanic Clouds are a familiar sight to Southern Hemisphere folk who’ve spent even a little bit of time studying the night sky. The galaxies are easily mistaken for the meteorological objects after which they’re named. If you look carefully, you can see the smaller cloud–aka the Small Magellanic Cloud–reflected in the water that the tide had washed over the rock shelf at Black Point Head, Gerroa, Australia.
With clouds and rain forecast for at least the next two weeks, I have to keep looking at photos like this to remind me that clear skies can come again.
The photo is a single-frame image, captured with my Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 14mm f/2.4 lens @ f/3.2, using an exposure time of 20 seconds @ ISO 6400.
A scene of jagged fiery peaks, turbulent magma-like clouds and fiercely hot bursts of bright light. Although this may be reminiscent of a raging fire or the heart of a volcano, it actually shows a cold cosmic clump of gas, dust and stars.
The subject of this image, from ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is the irregularly shaped Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the nearest galaxies to our own.
The dark, orange-tinted patches throughout the galaxy are plumes of murky dust. The hints of deep red and green mark areas of particularly cool dust, with white and blue tones highlighting hot regions of furious star formation. These pale pockets of gas are heated by the very stars they are creating, which push hot winds out into their surroundings.
To make this scene even more uninviting, the LMC is also home to a giant cosmic spider – the Tarantula Nebula. This hot cloud of gas and dust is easily visible as the brightest region in this image, located towards the lower left of the frame. This nebula is very well studied, for example by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which last year produced a stunning infrared mosaic showing the celestial creepy-crawly in great detail.
This is one of the reasons astronomers like to explore the LMC; it is close enough to us that we can pick out individual nebulas – including the Tarantula – and study how stars form, evolve and die in other galaxies. The LMC is populated by a mix of old and young stars, many of which are lined up along the galaxy’s central ‘bar’, which slants from the bottom left to the top right of this image.
ESA’s Herschel and NASA’s Spitzer are both space telescopes that explore the Universe in infrared light. The LMC looks quite different – and much more serene – in visible light, instead resembling a scattering of pale stars with occasional plumes of pink and purple.
The data making up this image are from Herschel’s Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) and Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS), and Spitzer’s Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS).
This image was previously published by NASA/JPL.
Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
The Milky Way night sky filled with stars over the rural countryside in Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.
Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) reveals what is really going on in an intriguing region of the Tarantula Nebula. Astronomers focused the powerful instrument on what looked like a small bubble feature in the image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). However, the spectra reveal a very different picture from a young star blowing a bubble in its surrounding gas.
The signature of atomic hydrogen, shown in blue, shows up in the star itself but not immediately surrounding it. Instead, it appears outside the “bubble,” which spectra show is actually “filled” with molecular hydrogen (green) and complex hydrocarbons (red). This indicates that the bubble is actually the top of a dense pillar of dust and gas that is being blasted by radiation from the cluster of massive young stars to its lower right (see the full NIRCam image). It does not appear as pillar-like as some other structures in the nebula because there is not much colour contrast with the area surrounding it.
The harsh stellar wind from the massive young stars in the nebula is breaking apart molecules outside the pillar, but inside they are preserved, forming a cushy cocoon for the star. This star is still too young to be clearing out its surroundings by blowing bubbles – NIRSpec has captured it just beginning to emerge from the protective cloud from which it was formed. Without Webb’s resolution at infrared wavelengths, the discovery of this star birth in action would not have been possible.
NIRSpec was built for the European Space Agency (ESA) by a consortium of European companies led by Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center providing its detector and micro-shutter subsystems.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
This glittering ball of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1898, which lies towards the centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud — one of our closest cosmic neighbours. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy that hosts an extremely rich population of star clusters, making it an ideal laboratory for investigating star formation.
Discovered in November 1834 by British astronomer John Herschel, NGC 1898 has been scrutinised numerous times by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Today we know that globular clusters belong to the oldest known objects in the Universe and that they are relics of the first epochs of galaxy formation. While we already have a pretty good picture on the globular clusters of the Milky Way — still with many unanswered questions — our studies on globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies just started. The observations of NGC 1898 will help to determine if their properties are similar to the ones found in the Milky Way, or if they have different features, due to being in a different cosmic environment.
This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The WFC3 observes light ranging from near-infrared to near-ultraviolet wavelengths, while the ACS explores the near-infrared to the ultraviolet.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY 4.0
It's almost cliché to say that seeing the world through another's eyes can help you to understand a point of view that's different to your own. In my experience, the advice is worthwhile, and I challenge myself to keep on doing that every day. Therefore today's photo is a look at the night through the eyes of another–those of a fish! Well, a fisheye lens at least.
The first fisheye lens was created by placing a photographic glass plate at the bottom of a bucket of water, using a "pinhole" aperture to let the light through. The first such photo was taken in 1905 by American physicist and inventor Robert W Wood. Photographers used the bucket-of-water method until 1922. That's not the kind of lens you could carry in your pocket!
I used a more conventional fisheye lens to shoot this photo of the Milky Way standing almost vertical over the 160-year-old Merrilla Uniting Church west of Goulburn, Australia. The Southern Cross is not too far above the tip of the church's finial piece, and the Magellanic Clouds seem to be hanging in the sky to the left of the building. The white glow shining from behind the church is light-spill from Australia's capital city, Canberra. At the upper left-hand corner, you can see the light from the nearby Goulburn city centre.
I shot this single-frame photo with my Canon EOS 6D Mk II camera, a Samyang 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens @ f/4.0, using an exposure time of 25 seconds @ ISO 6400.
This dark, tangled web is an object named SNR 0454-67.2. It formed in a very violent fashion — it is a supernova remnant, created after a massive star ended its life in a cataclysmic explosion and threw its constituent material out into surrounding space. This created the messy formation we see in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, with threads of red snaking amidst dark, turbulent clouds.
SNR 0454-67.2 is situated in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf spiral galaxy that lies close to the Milky Way. The remnant is likely the result of a Type Ia supernova explosion; this category of supernovae is formed from the death of a white dwarf star, which grows and grows by siphoning material from a stellar companion until it reaches a critical mass and then explodes.
As they always form via a specific mechanism — when the white dwarf hits a particular mass — these explosions always have a well-known luminosity, and are thus used as markers (standard candles) for scientists to obtain and measure distances throughout the Universe.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA; CC BY 4.0
We'll start at the beginning.
Driving to Coles Bay on a very wet and windy day, it seemed all hope of a clear sky for an early morning shoot had disappeared. But I set the alarm anyway. The conditions didn't even allow me time to scout out a great location. But by 5.00am there was not a cloud in the sky and all was calm. Working quickly is the key. The light begins to change so rapidly.
In this shot we can just make out the first inkling of the dawn. The silhouetted landscape reminded me of a Japanese print I had once seen, so that was confirmation enough of a good spot. So I took the shot on manual focus (it's just too dark for AF) and hoped for the best.
Years ago I was a member of an amateur astronomical society and used to know the Southern Sky like the back of my hand. I was glad that I still recognised the key features. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (dwarf galaxies neighbouring our own Milky Way). The Southern Cross (Crux) is there, although more difficult to make out in the pristine sky unaffected by city lights. And most pleasing of all to me is how clearly the Coalsack Nebula showed up.
The Coalsack Nebula is the most prominent dark nebula in the skies, visible to the naked eye as a dark patch obscuring a brief section of Milky Way stars as they cross their southernmost region of the sky just south of Crux. I even had a couple of shooting stars during the exposure - you'll see one here in this shot.
The choice of black and white was simple in the end. It provided a clarity that the colour version lost as the emerging dawn light tended to overshadow the real stars of the show (pardon the pun).
[I've tagged the key astronomical features for you. I tried to keep the exposure as short as possible so that the stars remained points of light and didn't show the earth's rotation. At the same time I wanted to minimise my ISO to reduce noise. In the end ISO400, f/4 and 15 seconds was my compromise.]
Another supernova remnant resulting from the explosion of a white dwarf star is revealed in this image of DEM L238, also known as SNR J0534.2-7033. The Chandra X-ray Observatory image (yellow, green and bright red) shows multimillion-degree gas and the Hubble Space Telescope image shows cooler gas in the system, near the outer border of the remnant in red.
This image is part of a collection of archiveed images made by “astronomy artist” Judy Schmidt, to help recognize #ArchivesMonth. All of the objects in this new archive collection are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, which is a small satellite galaxy to Milky Way.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
The Large Magellanic Cloud is one of my favourite night sky object viewable from the Southern Hemisphere. At a distance of 163,000 light years from earth LMC is considered an irregular type galaxy and the third closest galaxy to our own Milky Way.
For the tech specs of this image, it was shot on a Canon 6D with a Canon 90mm tilt-shift lens, which is such a super sharp lens! The exposure was 10 second shutter at f/2.8 ISO 6400. I had to shoot two single exposure frames to get me and the Large Magellanic Cloud in the one shot, and I stitched them together in Auto Pano Giga. The air glow was also quite amazing that night!