View allAll Photos Tagged SmallMagellanicCloud
The 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road are difficult to approach. The only real way down to the beach is down the Gibson Steps, cut into the limestone near the Gog & Magog seastacks. It's fun descending at 3am on a moonless night when the Milky Way is the only source of light!
To the right of the Milky Way are the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), 160,000 light years away, and to the right of the LMC is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), all of 200,000 light years away.
Still buffeted by strong winds from a passing storm, the resilient Nugget Point Lighthouse built in 1869 on South Island New Zealand's east coast continues to throw its light into the night sky that is also shared with the distant city lights of Dunedin, the Milky Way stretching overhead, Venus rising over the horizon, and the Small Magellanic Cloud.
I posted another shot of Gog and Magog - two of the 12 Apostles off the southern coast of Victoria in Australia - last week but this one was taken almost exactly a year earlier in March 2018.
The Milky Way is at a different angle here as the shot was taken just before dawn. The light on the far right is a ship in the distance.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), 160,000 light years away, is between the two sea stacks and just above it, to the left, is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), all of 200,000 light years away.
Prior to taking the shot of the sun breaking over the Twelve Apostles that I posted a couple of days ago, I was on the beach at the Gibson Steps photographing another apostle. It's either Gog or Magog - I'm sure somebody will let me know - and it couldn't have been a nicer morning.
Morning? It was pitch black - the sun wouldn't rise for an other couple of hours and the little sliver of a crescent moon was also still an hour away - and the sky was literally heavenly.
On the left of the sea stack is the Milky Way rising. The southern cross is visible to the left of the Coalsack. Directly above the sea stack is the Large Magellanic Cloud and to the right is Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky. The Small Magellanic Cloud is just about visible through that wispy cloud between the sea stack and Canopus.
I could have spent hours watching it.
In fact, I did.
EXIF: 14mm; f2.4; 30secs; ISO1600
First light for my new camera lens, a Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX II, used with a Vixen Polarie mount to compensate for the spin of the Earth during the long exposure.
Back to one of my favourite subjects: the Milky Way above the limestone stacks of Gog and Magog - two of the 12 Apostles off the southern coast of Victoria in Australia.
This shot was taken in 2019, having descended the Gibson Steps in complete darkness to get to the beach below. The shot is a single exposure with a bit of playing around in Photoshop to get the foreground to stand out, plus that wonderful new 'denoise' button to eliminate a lot of the graininess you get at 5000 ISO.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), 160,000 light years away, is in the top centre of the shot and just below it is the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), all of 200,000 light years away.
The Milky Way shines in the early morning sky above Árbol de Piedra (tree of stone) in Bolivia, a wonderfully eroded rock formation with a thin base (pics of this in full light to follow). The source of the subtle glow of light on the bottom of the left side of the photo is a mystery to me, as there are no towns nearby in Bolivia. The Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy a mere 200,000 light years away, appears as a small cloud of light not far above the horizon in the middle of the right half of the photo.
This was the darkest sky I have ever seen, fittingly in one of the most remote places I've ever been. It was rather cold as we were camped at 4560 m/ 15,000 ft. The water inside our vehicles nearly froze solid. After shooting the sky for about 45 minutes I finally felt the cold creep in despite the thrill of the brilliant sky. It was well worth the discomfort.
This is a blend of 6 vertical shots- the zenith of the MW is around 75 degrees above the horizon, so this is just a bit less than half of the sky. Keeping the horizon straight results in curving the MW across the sky, despite it appearing straight in the sky when viewed "live" from the ground.
The 2017 total solar eclipse is about to kick off in the USA shortly but I think these night skies are even more spectacular. Here's a Milky Way shot from a recent trip across the Simpson Desert in Australia. Our campsite was just north of the QAA Line on the border between Queensland and the Northern Territory. The moon was just setting but there was still enough fading light to show up the foreground. The Small Magellanic Cloud is clearly visible above the horizon.
Continued solar activity was generating more glow from Aurora Australis again last night, just visible to the naked eye with averted vision. The Milky Way is rising on the left, with its prominent, dark, Coal Sack Nebula. The descending Small Magellanic Cloud is high to the right. Between them lies the South Celestial Pole, unfortunately with no conspicuous marker like Polaris in the northern hemisphere.
IRIX 15mm f2.4 (Blackstone). Single frame.
Many thanks everyone who's visited, faved or commented on today's nightscape; it's appreciated very much.
Another Milky Way shot from Australia - a trip across the Simpson Desert in June 2017. Note how the Milky Way is "upside down" compared to this November 2017 shot of the Gibson Steps.
Our campsite was just north of the QAA Line on the border between Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Small Magellanic Cloud is visible on the left while the Large Magellanic Cloud is in the centre just above the horizon.
EXIF: 14mm; f/2.8; 30 secs; ISO3200.
Actually a pre-dawn shot from the beach at the Gibson Steps in Victoria, Australia. In the centre is one of the Twelve Apostles - either Gog or Magog.
On the left of the sea stack is the Milky Way rising. The southern cross is visible to the left of the Coalsack. Directly above the sea stack is the Large Magellanic Cloud and to the right is Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky. The Small Magellanic Cloud is visible between the sea stack and Canopus.
Night sky photo of the milk way on the right and on the left the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Carina nebula is visible near the bottom on the right. The four stars that make up the Crux are also visible midway up above the Carina Nebula. The bright star just above the small Magellanic Cloud is called 47 Tucanae and is fact not a star but a globular cluster located in the constellation Tucana.
The "mountain" in the background is called Mt Pirongia.
This image is made up of two images blended PP in Affinity Photo:
One photo was taken just after sunset at ISO 6400, f2.8 (should have been f13), and 109 sec exposure.
The second photo is of the night sky itself and was taken an hour after sun set @ ISO 3200, f2.8 and 15 sec exposure.
I adjusted the highlights and darks and applied prime noise reduction.
Any hints, tips and positive criticism are welcome.
Reworking of an old shot from a trip across the Simpson Desert in Australia in June 2017.
Our campsite was just north of the QAA Line on the border between Queensland and the Northern Territory. The Small Magellanic Cloud is visible on the left while the Large Magellanic Cloud is in the centre just above the horizon.
This one consists of 30 portrait oriented photos - 15 top and 15 bottom. Processed using PTGui. I light painted the foreground with a hand held spotlight.
This is my first astro pano :)
It consists of 18 portrait orientated photos, 9 at the bottom and 9 at the top. I used PTGui to stitch the photos together, it wasn't a fully automated process as I was asked to assign control points to several of the photos but it was a painless process nonetheless and I would definitely recommend this program.
This particular shot was something I had planned on prior to my trip. I had read a few tutorials and away I went. I'm glad all the shots fit together, I was worried that I mucked up a couple. The pano itself stretches about 160 degrees, almost going all the way from east to west.
The Milky Way night sky filled with stars over the rural countryside in Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.
50mm
f1.8
ISO 5000
103 x 6 seconds
Stitched in PTGui
This is another 50mm panorama taken at Serpentine Dam, not far from the outskirts of the Perth metropolitan area so I had to deal with quite a bit of light pollution, as you can see.
The Magellanic Clouds can be seen above the dam tower.
Canberra, Australia's capital city glows like a giant campfire in the night at over 100 kms away. Still the seeing at zenith and to the west was outstanding!
Nikon d5500
50mm
ISO 3200
f/2.5
Foreground: 37 x 6 seconds
Sky: 78 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
Hoya Red Intensifier filter
This is a 115 shot panorama of the Milky Way above Lake Ninan, about two hours north east of Perth in Western Australia. I was hoping for some water in the lake but as you can see it was dry as a bone.
The light pollution on the right is from the nearby Wheatbelt town of Calingiri. Just to the left of this are the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds.
The Milky Way setting over Sisters Beach, North West Tasmania. Jupiter and Saturn above the galaxy. Around 02:40 hrs and an excellent early morning to be on the beach with clear skies and noctilucient clouds over the hills at the far end of the beach.
Haven't had a good run with the weather or commitments so far this winter. If I've had the time it's been cloudy or too much moon, if I've had other things to be done it's been clear.
Had to go back into last year's archive to revisit a 7 frame Milky Way stitch to keep on top of processing. Have previously posted a wider version of the view - this one is a little tighter and an entire reprocess - to remind myself what to do.
Nikon Z6, Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8 S, 7 x 20 secs at 3200
Nikon d5500
85mm
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Foreground: 28 x 25 seconds
Sky: 71 x 25 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 99 shot panorama of the Carina/Crux region of the Milky Way above Lake Clifton's thrombolites, the most ancient lifeforms on Earth. To the right of the image are the Magellanic Clouds, neighbouring galaxies which orbit our own once every 1500 million years.
The Carina Nebula is the petal shaped pink object near the top left corner. Below that is the oblong shaped dark nebula, CoalSack, and hanging off that to the left is the famous constellation, Crux, more commonly referred to as the Southern Cross.
The Milky Way night sky filled with stars over the rural countryside in Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.
Nikon d5500
35mm
9 x 30 seconds
f/2.2
ISO 4000
iOptron SkyTracker
Our neighbours above Lake Clifton, an hour south of Perth in Western Australia.
Thanks to Dolly and Kenny for the title :-)
The arc of the Milky Way hanging over the rocky outcrop of Sisters Island from Sisters Beach.
I tend to focus more on the other end of the MW to the south but with the band hanging out over Bass Strait and an expanse of flat, wet sand in front I had a crack at it from this angle.
Nikon Z6, Nikkor 14-30/4, two frame blend - 239 secs at f/4, ISO 1000 for the beach and the island and 25 secs at f/4, ISO 12800 for the sky FL ~14mm.
Even though I had the tracker with me I didn't set it up. Possibly should have done for this frame!
Milky Way Core setting over Sisters Beach and Rocky Cape National Park, Tasmania.
The view is pretty much SE to NW. In addition to the MWC, at left we have the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. These dwarf galaxies are ~166 - 200 LY from us and likely to to collide with us at some point. Just above the SMC is Canopus and below the LMC is Achernar (just made the crop!)
Above the core itself are Jupiter and Saturn and tucked away above the far end of the beach are some pretty cool noctilucient clouds I didn't actually notice until editing the frames. Finally Rocky Cape at extreme right where the lighthouse is just out of shot but the lume can be made out clearly.
Nikon Z6, Nikkor Z 20/1.8 S, 12 portrait frame stitch at 20 secs, f/2.2, ISO 3200. Manual WB at 3800K. 02:40 Hrs 2020/07/23
Sisters Beach has a tide of around 8' rise and fall and I was hoping for a lot less water on the generally flat beach in order to pick up heaps of reflections but was not to be - it was about 1/2 tide on the flood...
Press "L" on your keyboard for maximum impact :-)
Nikon d5500
35mm
ISO 4000
f/2.2
6 x 30 seconds
iOptron SkyTracker
This is a 6 image panorama of the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds at Lake Ninan approximately 2 hours NE of Perth in Western Australia.
These two neighbouring galaxies can pretty much only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere. The LMC contains around 30 billion stars while the SMC contains just a few billion. The bright 'star' above the SMC is a globular cluster called 47 Tucanae containing around 500k stars.
At a distance of just 200,000 light years, the Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the most distant objects we can see with the naked eye (from the southern hemisphere). SMC is home to several hundred million stars including some of the closest neighbors to our Milky Way Galaxy. It's thought to have had a barred spiral shape in the past but that was disrupted by our own Milky Way Galaxy - giving us the dwarf irregular galaxy we see today.
I captured this image (from my home in Colorado) using iTelescope.net's T8 telescope based in their Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales in Australia. I captured 42 images over 2 nights (in a 2x1 mosaic) and processed them with Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop.
NGC 346 and friends in the Small Magellanic Cloud
Distance: 206,000 light years.
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Image exposure: 120 minutes.
Image field of view: 87.6' x 56.4'.
Image date: 2021-08-17
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The dark night sky with The Milky Way Galaxy filled with stars and a hint of the Southern Aurora from Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds above light-painted Pinnacles, Nambung National Park.
These two galaxies orbit our own Milky Way galaxy, and until 1994 were regarded as the next closest galaxies to our own.
I understand that the Magellanic Clouds are only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, but are quite visible in that Hemisphere to the naked eye as 'grey smudges' in a dark sky.
The Small Magellanic Cloud (slightly below left of centre, and directly above the tallest pinnacle rock) is a little difficult to discern here, because of light pollution from the sweep of a car's headlights driving around in the National Park (bottom left-hand side). I was irritated by the invasion on my photography at the time, but upon review, chose this image as more interesting because of the light intrusion.
Just to the left of the Small Magellanic Cloud is the bright globular star cluster 47 Tucanae (NGC 104). The bright white star in the upper right corner of the frame is Canopus.
Another wide angle shot from a previous trip to The Pinnacles Desert, about 2 hours north of Perth in Western Australia.
Normally in March I do a trip to Australia and if I get a chance, I head to Port Campbell on the Victoria coast where - if the conditions are right - you can see this sort of stuff at night. Sadly, I didn't make the trip this year but here's a photo (a stitch of several photos actually) of the Milky Way from the bottom of the Gibson Steps from 12 months ago.
Orion is on the right. Gog and Magog (and the Magellanic Clouds) are in the centre. The core of the Milky Way is on the left.
Enjoy.
I’m not sure how long it’s been since I posted a Milky Way arch photo. I’ve had this one in the can for several months now, so figured it was time to get it in front of some eyeballs.
As well as the Milky Way my photo takes in two other galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Jupiter, Saturn & Mars are here as well, and I also caught a lot of green atmospheric airglow in the panorama.
The location I captured the sky at on this clear night was Seven Mile Beach, near Gerroa, Australia. I shot 71 overlapping images, with my camera mounted on a “Nodal Ninja” panoramic head.
I shot each of the 71 individual frames with my Canon EOS 6D camera, a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens @ f/1.8, using an exposure time of 10 seconds @ ISO 6400.
Nikon d5500
50mm + Hoya Filter
36 x 8 seconds
ISO 4000
f/2.2
Stitched in MS ICE
This is a 385 megapixel image of the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds taken at Herron Point, just south of Mandurah in Western Australia. These neighbouring galaxies are 160k & 200k light years away respectively. The LMC contains approximately 30 billion stars while the SMC contains a few billion. The bright 'star' above the SMC is a globular cluster called 47 Tucanae containing around 500k stars. They can only be seen in Southern Hemisphere skies, so lucky us I guess :)
Looking south amid the dark skies of the Tankwa Karoo National Park towards Centauraus and some of the densest parts of the Milky Way, as well as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The very bright star near the top of the shot, to the right of the Milky Way, is Canopus.
Just a portion of the SMC The Small Magellanic Cloud, or Nubecula Minor, is a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way. Classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy, the SMC has a diameter of about 7,000 light-years, contains several hundred million stars, and has a total mass of approximately 7 billion solar masses
Not for the first time, the appearance of the two dwarf galaxies known as the “Magellanic Clouds” remind me of jellyfish, or similarly amorphous inhabitants of the ocean. Seeing them hovering over the Tasman Sea at Gerroa, Australia here in my photo makes that act of imagination a whole lot easier. The “Clouds” aren’t creatures, nor are they from the ocean, but are companions of our Milky Way galaxy, travelling with us through the Local Group of galaxies, yet visible to nocturnal folk here in the Southern Hemisphere.
To the upper-left of the Small Magellanic Cloud is what looks like an overgrown star, but is a globular star cluster–a big ball of stars, pretty much–with the unromantic name of 47 Tucanae. This bright and slightly fuzzy orb that I included in the photo is about 120 light-years in diameter, making it a massive ball of stars, indeed.
To produce this final photo, I shot two overlapping images & after editing those in Adobe Lightroom Classic, I stitched them together with the (now-defunct) application Autopano Pro. After stitching, I washed the composite frame through Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop (for noise reduction and improving some of the details). The two original frames that I took were shot with my Canon EOS 6D camera, fitted with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens @ f/2.0, using an exposure time of 13 seconds @ ISO 3200.
Nikon d5100
35mm
4 x 13 seconds
ISO 4000
f2
Hmmm, something different about this one.....oh, no Milky Way! Well technically it's all the Milky Way, except those two splotches of course, they're the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, our neighbouring galaxies 200k & 160k light years away. The LMC contains approximately 30 billion stars while the SMC contains just a few billion. These two beauties can only be seen in Southern Hemisphere skies.
The yellow/orange light pollution is caused by smoke from controlled burns around the city at the time.
A countryside landscape at Poppethead Reserve under the night sky. The site is the historic Poppethead of the Aberdare Central Colliery at Kitchener, near Cessnock, in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia.
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About
There is nothing more exciting than the night sky, and nothing more rewarding when you learn something new about it.
I love being out with nature, at dawn, dusk, or during the middle of the night. I find it amazing (in terms of photography more so) that the stars we see at night are emit light that has traveled millions 'light years' to reach us. When you pause for a moment and think about the light in a studio/strobe its instant, its right there, but when we look at the stars, we are looking at the past, something that took place millions of years ago, amazing!
So what did I learn?
Well, as previously mentioned, there is more than one way to find the celestial pole (the spot the stars spin around), all you need to do is find the 'Magellanic Clouds'
What the?
The Magellanic Clouds are two dwarf galaxies, and you can see them clearly here. Make an equilateral triangle, using the two clouds, the third point of which is the south celestial pole.
I'd love a 5D for Christmas, and a 16-35L, so I can shoot these with next to no noise ;P
Enjoy.
- Canon 50D.
- ISO 200, f5.6, 20 minutes, 10mm
- Sigma 10-20mm lens.
- Tripod.
Processing
- NR in Lightroom 2.2.
- Soft light layer in Photoshop 6.0.
- Colour dodge in Photoshop 6.0.
About the Magellanic Clouds.
The two Magellanic Clouds (or Nubeculae Magellani) are irregular dwarf galaxies, which are members of our Local Group of galaxies. Once they were thought to be orbiting our Milky Way galaxy. However, new research seems to indicate that this is not the case. The two galaxies are, Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).
The Magellanic Clouds were certainly known since the earliest times by the ancient Middle Eastern peoples. The first preserved mention of the Large Magellanic Cloud was by Persian astronomer Al Sufi, who in 964, in his Book of Fixed Stars, calls it al-Bakr, meaning "the White Ox", of the southern Arabs, and points out that while invisible from Northern Arabia and Baghdad, this object is visible from the strait of Bab el Mandeb, at 12°15' Northern latitude.
In Europe, they were first observed by Italian Peter Martyr and Andreas Corsali in the end of 15 century. Subsequently, it was reported by Antonio Pigafetta for the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan during the circumnavigation in 1519–1522. However, naming the clouds after Magellan did not become widespread until much later. In Bayer's Uranometria they are designated as 'NVBECVLA MAIOR' and 'NVBECVLA MINOR'; even in a 1756 French astronomer Lacaille's star map, they are designated as 'le Grand Nuage' and 'le Petit Nuage', (in both cases this means simply the "Large Cloud" and the "Small Cloud", in Latin or French).
The Large Magellanic Cloud and its neighbor and relative, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are conspicuous objects in the southern hemisphere, looking like separated pieces of the Milky Way to the naked eye. Roughly 21° apart in the night sky, the true distance between them is roughly 75,000 light-years. Until the discovery of the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy in 1994, they were the closest known galaxies to our own.
Observation and theoretical evidence suggest that the Magellanic Clouds have both been greatly distorted by tidal interaction with the Milky Way as they travel close to it.
The Small Magellanic Cloud (NGC 292) visible from the southern hemisphere, a companion/satellite galaxy of our Milkyway 203,000LY away.
Exposed in LRGB with H-Alpha and OIII color at 150mm focal length through an Sigma 150mm f2.8 prime lens, QHY268M camera, guided with a 80mm refractor at 500mm FL and tracked on a hypertuned CGEM mount.
The 15% narrowband data screened over the LRGB image emphasises the nebulosity within the satellite galaxy.
Total exposure time was 19 hours and 4 minutes.
57 x 13 seconds
ISO 3200
35mm
f1.8
This is the last of my photos from Lake Dumbleyung and it's also my biggest pano yet, coming in at 165 megapixels.
As per the above, it consists of 57 individual photos stitched in PTGui covering approximately 220 degrees of the night sky. I've never taken a full panorama with my 35mm lens, they've always covered no more than about 100 degrees. It's quite a bit more work not only because I'm taking a lot more shots but also in stitching it together.........my pc actually shut itself down at one point! As per usual, the foreground was light painted using a hand held spotlight.