The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a dwarf galaxy. It has a diameter of about 7,000 light-years. and contains several hundred million stars.[5] It has a total mass of approximately 7 billion times the mass of our Sun.[6]

Some speculate that the SMC was once a barred spiral galaxy that was disrupted by the Milky Way to become somewhat irregular. It contains a central bar structure.

At a distance of about 200,000 light-years, it is one of the Milky Way's nearest neighbors. It is also one of the most distant objects that can be seen with the naked eye.

The Milky Way night sky filled with stars over the rural countryside in Blayney, Central West, NSW, Australia.

This image captured by NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) highlights the Small Magellanic Cloud. Also known as NGC 292, the Small Magellanic Cloud is a small galaxy about 200,000 light-years away.

The Small Magellanic Cloud is named after the Portuguese explorer Fernando de Magellan who observed it on his voyage around the world in 1519. Since it is visible to the naked eye in dark-sky conditions, it is likely that people in the southern hemisphere observed the galaxy long before Magellan recorded it.

Located in the constellation Tucana, the Small Magellanic Cloud looks like a wispy cloud that circles the south celestial pole. Nearby, but not visible in this image, is the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is a sister galaxy to the Small Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers originally thought that both galaxies were orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy. But recent research suggests that they might be moving too fast to be bound by the Milky Ways gravity and are passing by for the first time.

This WISE image illustrates why the Small Magellanic Cloud is considered an irregular galaxy. Galaxies are classified according to their shape, such as spiral or elliptical. Irregular galaxies dont fit into any of these categories -- they are unique in shape.

The two streaks seen in the upper half of the image are satellites orbiting Earth, which happened to pass in front of the Small Magellanic Cloud when WISE captured this view.

This mosaic image was made from all four infrared detectors aboard WISE. The color in this image represents different wavelengths of infrared light. Blue and cyan represent light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns mostly emitted from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

Edited Chandra Space Telescope image of 1E0102.2-7219 and its associated neutron star. Hubble Space Telescope data/image. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: A composite image of the supernova 1E0102.2-7219 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue and purple), visible light data from VLT’s MUSE instrument (bright red), and additional data from Hubble (dark red and green). A neutron star, the ultra dense core of a massive star that collapses and undergoes a supernova explosion, is found at its center.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 121, a global cluster of stars that belongs to the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

Original caption: This image shows NGC 121, a globular cluster in the constellation of Tucana (The Toucan). Globular clusters are big balls of old stars that orbit the centres of their galaxies like satellites — the Milky Way, for example, has around 150. NGC 121 belongs to one of our neighbouring galaxies, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). It was discovered in 1835 by English astronomer John Herschel, and in recent years it has been studied in detail by astronomers wishing to learn more about how stars form and evolve. Stars do not live forever — they develop differently depending on their original mass. In many clusters, all the stars seem to have formed at the same time, although in others we see distinct populations of stars that are different ages. By studying old stellar populations in globular clusters, astronomers can effectively use them as tracers for the stellar population of their host galaxies. With an object like NGC 121, which lies close to the Milky Way, Hubble is able to resolve individual stars and get a very detailed insight. NGC 121 is around 10 billion years old, making it the oldest cluster in its galaxy; all of the SMC's other globular clusters are 8 billion years old or younger. However, NGC 121 is still several billions of years younger than its counterparts in the Milky Way and in other nearby galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud. The reason for this age gap is not completely clear, but it could indicate that cluster formation was initially delayed for some reason in the SMC, or that NGC 121 is the sole survivor of an older group of star clusters. This image was taken using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). A version of this image was submitted to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Stefano Campani.

DARK SKY PROJECT Photo taken by Igor Hoogerwerf - Location: University of Canterbury Mt John Observatory, Lake Tekapo, New Zealand. For some stunning Dark Sky Project time-lapse animations, please refer to Dark Sky Project on You Tube.

Horizontally oriented overview.

The yellow ones are the Milky Way Galaxy and its satellites; the green ones are the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and its satellites; the blue pair are the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and its possible satellite; and the red/orange ones are miscellaneous Local Group galaxies that are not believed to be bound to any of the three spirals.

Edited TESS PR image of first light (or, more accurately, first released images) view. TESS is a satellite designed to search for planets. This is a set of strips of images showing what the camera saw (mainly stars and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (satellite galaxies of the Milky Way)).

Image source: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-shares-firs...

and

Image source: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13069

Original caption: NASA’s newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is now providing valuable data to help scientists discover and study exciting new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Part of the data from TESS’ initial science orbit includes a detailed picture of the southern sky taken with all four of the spacecraft’s wide-field cameras. This “first light” science image captures a wealth of stars and other objects, including systems previously known to have exoplanets.

“In a sea of stars brimming with new worlds, TESS is casting a wide net and will haul in a bounty of promising planets for further study,” said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This first light science image shows the capabilities of TESS’ cameras, and shows that the mission will realize its incredible potential in our search for another Earth.”

TESS acquired the image using all four cameras during a 30-minute period on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The black lines in the image are gaps between the camera detectors. The images include parts of a dozen constellations, from Capricornus to Pictor, and both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the galaxies nearest to our own. The small bright dot above the Small Magellanic Cloud is a globular cluster — a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars — called NGC 104, also known as 47 Tucanae because of its location in the southern constellation Tucana, the Toucan. Two stars, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, are so bright they saturate an entire column of pixels on the detectors of TESS’s second and fourth cameras, creating long spikes of light.

“This swath of the sky’s southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge.

Vertically oriented overview.

The yellow ones are the Milky Way Galaxy and its satellites; the green ones are the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and its satellites; the blue pair are the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and its possible satellite; and the red/orange ones are miscellaneous Local Group galaxies that are not believed to be bound to any of the three spirals.

Milky Way (mostly buried) and its crowd of satellite galaxies. The green ones in the background are associated with our sister galaxy, Andromeda.

Closer-ups of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our own Milky Way. Next to the Small Magellanic Cloud is the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, a ball of 10,000 stars about 13,000 light-years away from us. (JPOD 218) #photoaday #pictureaday #astrophotography #valledeelqui #rutadelasestrellas #vicuñachile #largemagellaniccloud #smallmagellaniccloud #47tucanae #magellanicclouds

Iâve posted photos of the Magellanic Clouds a few times over the past year or so. Every time I feature them in a post I get comments from northern hemisphere people about how beautiful they are and how much theyâd love to see them. Sometimes I get comments from southern hemisphere people along the lines of âso thatâs what those white blobs were!â

Wherever youâre from I hope that you find these two little companion galaxies of our Milky Way to be as alluring and fascinating as I do. Set in the sky here by the old, dead tree in the foreground I think they look extra lovely. In case youâre wondering how I lit up the tree, the answer is that I didnât. I waited until cars were approaching on the road behind me and let the overspill from their headlights do the work.

Shot with Canon EOS 6D, Samyang 14mm lens @ f/4.0, 25 sec @ ISO 6400.

The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the bar on the left and a wing extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. In addition, the image contains a galactic globular cluster in the lower left (blue cluster of stars) and emission from dust in our own galaxy (green in the upper right and lower right corners). ASU-IPF-3061

Pinnacles desert (Nambung National Park - Western Australia), a monochromatic view.

Some clouds, especially near the horizon. But the cloud around the middle is actually the Small Magellanic dwarf galaxy.

24mm lens f/2.8 on Nikon D7000, exposure 10 sec at 800 ISO

Landscape illuminated by moonlight.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the nebula (and star formation region) N66 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way).

Original caption: Contained within the most massive and active star-forming region in the nearby galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, star cluster NGC 346 delivers energetic radiation that excites nearby gas, causing it to glow. The result is one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed images of a nearby star-forming region that has ever been taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The complexity of the gas and dust that surrounds NGC 346 shows a series of arched, ragged filaments and a distinct ridge created when high-energy radiation from the young, hot stars eats into the denser areas of the nearby interstellar medium. The intricate, dark beaded edge of the ridge, seen from Hubble's perspective in silhouette, contains several small dust globules that point back towards the central cluster. Energetic outflows and radiation from hot young stars are eroding the dense outer portions of the star-forming region, formally known as N66, exposing new stellar nurseries. The diffuse natal parts of the nebula block the energetic outflows from streaming away from the cluster, leaving a series of filaments marking the path of the outflows. This image of NGC 346 and its surrounding star formation was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in July 2004 using a filter which isolates light emitted by hydrogen gas. Individual images from Hubble's cameras retain no color information as such, other than the color of a filter, which selects a range of wavelengths from the full spectrum of light. A black and white (monochrome) image most realistically represents the range of brightness in such a single image. Color images may be reconstructed by combining several images made through different filters and assigning a distinct color to each image. Even without the added color dimension, the wide range of gray tones in the black and white image reveals a great deal of the nebula's finely detailed structure.

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the star cluster NGC 602, near the Small Magellanic Cloud (one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way). The nebula reminds me of a large predator with lots of teeth about to eat the stars... Kaleidoscopic variant.

Original caption: Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies the young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and undulating shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)

Editor: NASA Administrator

Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and its satellite galaxies (green), Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and its possible satellite (blue), Milky Way Galaxy and its satellites (yellow), and Local Group galaxies not believed to be bound to any of the three spirals (red/orange).

Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the star cluster NGC 602, near the Small Magellanic Cloud (one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way). The nebula reminds me of a large predator with lots of teeth about to eat the stars... Perspective wall variant.

Original caption: Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies the young star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and undulating shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)

Editor: NASA Administrator

The infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, reveals the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 200,000 light-years away.

The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the "bar" and "wing" on the left and the "tail" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. The tail contains only gas, dust and newly formed stars. Spitzer data has confirmed that the tail region was recently torn off the main body of the galaxy. Two of the tail clusters, which are still embedded in their birth clouds, can be seen as red dots.

In addition, the image contains a galactic globular cluster in the lower left (blue cluster of stars) and emission from dust in our own galaxy (green in the upper right and lower right corners).

The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. The dust being formed in old, evolved stars (blue stars with a red tinge) is measured using mid-infrared wavelengths. The present day interstellar dust is weighed by measuring the intensity and color of emission at longer infrared wavelengths. The rate at which the raw material is being consumed is determined by studying ionized gas regions and the younger stars (yellow/red extended regions). The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its companion galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, are the two galaxies where this type of study is possible, and the research could not be done without Spitzer.

This image was captured by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer, with 24-micron light colored blue; 70-micron light colored green and 160-micron light colored red. The blue, green, and red colors trace hot, warm and cool dust emission, respectively.

The image was taken as part of the Spitzer Legacy program known as SAGE-SMC: Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Tidally-Stripped, Low Metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI

The Large and Small Magellanic clouds, actually small companion galaxies of our Milky Way, photographed through the aurora australis from Invercargill in New Zealand

"From the far reaches of space come the most vibrant images known to man. Experience the powerful and stunning imagery of the Hubble Telescope at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex during the Eye on the Universe: The Hubble Space Telescope exhibition."

This Hubble Space Telescope view of the Small Magellanic Cloud (NGC 346) separates the cluster into several distinct knots of brilliant stars surrounded by various complex structures, including a long, dark arc of dust created by the outward pressure of radiation.

Lying in the constellation Tucana, this irregular galaxy is 200,000 light-years from Earth, but still easily visible to the naked eye. It contains a total mass of roughly 7 billion Suns, large quantities of gas and dust and several intense star-forming regions.

Edited image from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 of the Small Magellanic Cloud.

Original caption: The two-colour image shows an overview of the full Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and was composed from two images from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The field of view is slightly larger than 3.5. N66 with the open star cluster NGC 346 is the largest of the star-forming regions seen below the centre of the SMC.

Edited TESS PR image of first light (or, more accurately, first released images) view. TESS is a satellite designed to search for planets. This is a view of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy visible in the southern hemisphere.

Image source: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-shares-firs...

and

Image source: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13069

Original caption: NASA’s newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is now providing valuable data to help scientists discover and study exciting new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Part of the data from TESS’ initial science orbit includes a detailed picture of the southern sky taken with all four of the spacecraft’s wide-field cameras. This “first light” science image captures a wealth of stars and other objects, including systems previously known to have exoplanets.

“In a sea of stars brimming with new worlds, TESS is casting a wide net and will haul in a bounty of promising planets for further study,” said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This first light science image shows the capabilities of TESS’ cameras, and shows that the mission will realize its incredible potential in our search for another Earth.”

TESS acquired the image using all four cameras during a 30-minute period on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The black lines in the image are gaps between the camera detectors. The images include parts of a dozen constellations, from Capricornus to Pictor, and both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the galaxies nearest to our own. The small bright dot above the Small Magellanic Cloud is a globular cluster — a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars — called NGC 104, also known as 47 Tucanae because of its location in the southern constellation Tucana, the Toucan. Two stars, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, are so bright they saturate an entire column of pixels on the detectors of TESS’s second and fourth cameras, creating long spikes of light.

“This swath of the sky’s southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge.

This new image shows the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light from the Herschel Space Observatory a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the two biggest satellite galaxies of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, though they are still considered dwarf galaxies compared to the big spiral of the Milky Way.

In combined data from Herschel and Spitzer, the irregular distribution of dust in the Small Magellanic Cloud becomes clear. A stream of dust extends to the left in this image, known as the galaxy's "wing," and a bar of star formation appears on the right.

The colors in this image indicate temperatures in the dust that permeates the Cloud. Colder regions show where star formation is at its earliest stages or is shut off, while warm expanses point to new stars heating surrounding dust. The coolest areas and objects appear in red, corresponding to infrared light taken up by Herschel's Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver at 250 microns, or millionths of a meter. Herschel's Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer fills out the mid-temperature bands, shown here in green, at 100 and 160 microns. The warmest spots appear in blue, courtesy of 24- and 70-micron data from Spitzer.

Earlier in the week, I lamented about the lack of stars in the night sky. For anyone who has never looked at the night sky when they’ve gone out of the city, this is what you’re missing out on.

The “cloud” in the the upper left corner is the Milky Way, the galaxy in which Earth is. The two smaller clouds are the Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies usually invisible in the city night sky.

All the light in this photo was from starlight. The moon wasn’t even out.

Edited TESS PR image of first light (or, more accurately, first released images) view. TESS is a satellite designed to search for planets. This is a set of strips of images showing what the camera saw (mainly stars and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (satellite galaxies of the Milky Way)).

Image source: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-shares-firs...

and

Image source: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13069

Original caption: NASA’s newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is now providing valuable data to help scientists discover and study exciting new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Part of the data from TESS’ initial science orbit includes a detailed picture of the southern sky taken with all four of the spacecraft’s wide-field cameras. This “first light” science image captures a wealth of stars and other objects, including systems previously known to have exoplanets.

“In a sea of stars brimming with new worlds, TESS is casting a wide net and will haul in a bounty of promising planets for further study,” said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This first light science image shows the capabilities of TESS’ cameras, and shows that the mission will realize its incredible potential in our search for another Earth.”

TESS acquired the image using all four cameras during a 30-minute period on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The black lines in the image are gaps between the camera detectors. The images include parts of a dozen constellations, from Capricornus to Pictor, and both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the galaxies nearest to our own. The small bright dot above the Small Magellanic Cloud is a globular cluster — a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars — called NGC 104, also known as 47 Tucanae because of its location in the southern constellation Tucana, the Toucan. Two stars, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, are so bright they saturate an entire column of pixels on the detectors of TESS’s second and fourth cameras, creating long spikes of light.

“This swath of the sky’s southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge.

The infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, reveals the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 200,000 light-years away.

The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the "bar" on the left and a "wing" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. In addition, the image contains a galactic globular cluster in the lower left (blue cluster of stars) and emission from dust in our own galaxy (green in the upper right and lower right corners).

The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. The dust being formed in old, evolved stars (blue stars with a red tinge) is measured using mid-infrared wavelengths. The present day interstellar dust is weighed by measuring the intensity and color of emission at longer infrared wavelengths. The rate at which the raw material is being consumed is determined by studying ionized gas regions and the younger stars (yellow/red extended regions). The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its companion galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, are the two galaxies where this type of study is possible, and the research could not be done without Spitzer.

This image was captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer (blue is 3.6-micron light; green is 8.0 microns; and red is combination of 24-, 70- and 160-micron light). The blue color mainly traces old stars. The green color traces emission from organic dust grains (mainly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). The red traces emission from larger, cooler dust grains.

The image was taken as part of the Spitzer Legacy program known as SAGE-SMC: Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Tidally-Stripped, Low Metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud.

These images show wide and close-up views of a long ribbon of gas called the Magellanic Stream, which stretches nearly halfway around the Milky Way. In the combined radio and visible-light image at the top, the gaseous stream is shown in pink. The radio observations from the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey have been combined with the Mellinger All-Sky Panorama in visible light. The Milky Way is the light blue band in the centre of the image. The brown clumps are interstellar dust clouds in our galaxy. The Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, are the white regions at the bottom right. The image at the bottom, taken at radio wavelengths, is a close-up map of the Magellanic Stream that also was generated from the LAB Survey. Researchers determined the chemistry of the gas filament by using Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to measure the amount of heavy elements, such as oxygen and sulphur, at six locations (marked with an "x") along the Magellanic Stream. COS observed light from faraway quasars that passed through the stream, and detected the spectral fingerprints of these elements from the way they absorb ultraviolet light. Quasars are the brilliant cores of active galaxies. These observations show that most of the gas was stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud about two billion years ago — but surprisingly, a second region of the stream was formed more recently from the Large Magellanic Cloud. The pink circles to the right mark the location of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

Version 2.

La pequeña nube de magallanes es una galaxia irregular que se encuentra a casi 200 mil años luz de el sistema solar, se encuentra en la constelación del tucan, se cree que anteriormente era una Galaxia espiral barrada que fue distorsionada por la Vía Láctea. Por otra parte se puede apreciar el Cumulo globular 47 Tucanae (la esfera blanca en la parte superior derecha de la galaxia), en realidad son miles de estrellas ligadas gravitacionalmente en un conjunto casi esférico que órbita en torno a nuestra galaxia. Se encuentra a 16.700 años luz del sistema solar y es el segundo cumulo globular mas brillante después de omega centauri.

Capturada el 4/11/2018, En el Estero Coyanco, Cajon del Maipo.

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. And is that aurora on the southern horizon visible from 32º South?!?!?!

Edited Chandra Space Telescope image of 1E0102.2-7219 and its associated neutron star. X-Ray-only image. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: A composite image of the supernova 1E0102.2-7219 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue and purple), visible light data from VLT’s MUSE instrument (bright red), and additional data from Hubble (dark red and green). A neutron star, the ultra dense core of a massive star that collapses and undergoes a supernova explosion, is found at its center.

Edited TESS PR image of first light (or, more accurately, first released images) view. TESS is a satellite designed to search for planets. This is a view of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy visible in the southern hemisphere. Annotated by NASA.

Image source: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-tess-shares-firs...

and

Image source: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13069

Original caption: NASA’s newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is now providing valuable data to help scientists discover and study exciting new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. Part of the data from TESS’ initial science orbit includes a detailed picture of the southern sky taken with all four of the spacecraft’s wide-field cameras. This “first light” science image captures a wealth of stars and other objects, including systems previously known to have exoplanets.

“In a sea of stars brimming with new worlds, TESS is casting a wide net and will haul in a bounty of promising planets for further study,” said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This first light science image shows the capabilities of TESS’ cameras, and shows that the mission will realize its incredible potential in our search for another Earth.”

TESS acquired the image using all four cameras during a 30-minute period on Tuesday, Aug. 7. The black lines in the image are gaps between the camera detectors. The images include parts of a dozen constellations, from Capricornus to Pictor, and both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the galaxies nearest to our own. The small bright dot above the Small Magellanic Cloud is a globular cluster — a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars — called NGC 104, also known as 47 Tucanae because of its location in the southern constellation Tucana, the Toucan. Two stars, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, are so bright they saturate an entire column of pixels on the detectors of TESS’s second and fourth cameras, creating long spikes of light.

“This swath of the sky’s southern hemisphere includes more than a dozen stars we know have transiting planets based on previous studies from ground observatories,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research in Cambridge.

Chandra Space Telescope of NGC 602 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, in x-rays.

Gaze up at the night sky from ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile, and you will be greeted with a stunning view like this one. Flecks of blue, orange, red; each a different star, galaxy, nebula, or more, together forming a sparkling sky overhead. Astronomers peer at this beautiful backdrop, trying to unravel the mysteries of the Universe. To do this, they use telescopes like the ones shown here, the VLT Auxiliary Telescopes. This image shows three of the four moveable units that feed light into the Very Large Telescope Interferometer, the world's most advanced optical instrument. Combining to form one larger telescope, they are greater than the sum of their parts: they reveal details that would be visible with a telescope as large as the distance between them.

The 4 meter at Cerro Tololo with the south celestial pole. Long exposure noise reduction is turned on in this shot so no clever cropping is required.

Equipment: Kowa Prominar 500mm F5.6L+Mount adapter TX07T f=350mm F4, EOS 6D SEO-SP4 (UIBAR), Vixen AP with autoguiding by PHD2

Exposure: 210sec x8 composite at ISO3200

Taken on Mar 29, 2019

Edited Chandra Space Telescope image of 1E0102.2-7219 and its associated neutron star. X-Ray-only image.

Original caption: A composite image of the supernova 1E0102.2-7219 contains X-rays from Chandra (blue and purple), visible light data from VLT’s MUSE instrument (bright red), and additional data from Hubble (dark red and green). A neutron star, the ultra dense core of a massive star that collapses and undergoes a supernova explosion, is found at its center.

Another night sky shot. The bright line near the cloud on the left hand side I've been told is an iridium flare, which occurs when a satellite reflects sunlight onto the earth. Less obvious but still visible are a shooting star and the Small Magellanic Cloud.

This was taken because that small fuzzy blob you see just above the tree is the SMC.

This is my first attempt at a star trail photo.

It was a 10 minute exposure looking south at Redgate Beach, near Margaret River.

It may be autumn but it felt like winter when I was out there.

Edited image released by the European Southern Observatory and produced by the Deep Sky Survey 2 of most of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Color/processing variant.

Original caption: Wide field image, based on data from Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy and is centred on the star-forming region NGC 346.

Atacama

I hurriedly took this photo of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds from right outside the dorms at Cerro Tololo before heading up to check on the other observers to get ready for my run tomorrow. I'm really hoping to get a better one in the next few days when the Moon comes up later at night.

(File: DM80126-33-Seq_BLine)

The infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, reveals the stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, approximately 200,000 light-years away..

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The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the "bar" and "wing" on the left and the "tail" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. The tail contains only gas, dust and newly formed stars. Spitzer data has confirmed that the tail region was recently torn off the main body of the galaxy. Two of the tail clusters, which are still embedded in their birth clouds, can be seen as red dots..

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In addition, the image contains a galactic globular cluster in the lower left (blue cluster of stars) and emission from dust in our own galaxy (green in the upper right and lower right corners)..

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The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. The dust being formed in old, evolved stars (blue stars with a red tinge) is measured using mid-infrared wavelengths. The present day interstellar dust is weighed by measuring the intensity and color of emission at longer infrared wavelengths. The rate at which the raw material is being consumed is determined by studying ionized gas regions and the younger stars (yellow/red extended regions). The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its companion galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, are the two galaxies where this type of study is possible, and the research could not be done without Spitzer..

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This image was captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera and multiband imaging photometer (blue is 3.6-micron light; green is 8.0 microns; and red is combination of 24-, 70- and 160-micron light). The blue color mainly traces old stars. The green color traces emission from organic dust grains (mainly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). The red traces emission from larger, cooler dust grains..

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The image was taken as part of the Spitzer Legacy program known as SAGE-SMC: Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Tidally-Stripped, Low Metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud.

These images show wide and close-up views of a long ribbon of gas called the Magellanic Stream, which stretches nearly halfway around the Milky Way. In the combined radio and visible-light image at the top, the gaseous stream is shown in pink. The radio observations from the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey have been combined with the Mellinger All-Sky Panorama in visible light. The Milky Way is the light blue band in the centre of the image. The brown clumps are interstellar dust clouds in our galaxy. The Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, are the white regions at the bottom right. The image at the bottom, taken at radio wavelengths, is a close-up map of the Magellanic Stream that also was generated from the LAB Survey. Researchers determined the chemistry of the gas filament by using Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to measure the amount of heavy elements, such as oxygen and sulphur, at six locations (marked with an "x") along the Magellanic Stream. COS observed light from faraway quasars that passed through the stream, and detected the spectral fingerprints of these elements from the way they absorb ultraviolet light. Quasars are the brilliant cores of active galaxies. These observations show that most of the gas was stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud about two billion years ago — but surprisingly, a second region of the stream was formed more recently from the Large Magellanic Cloud. The pink circles to the right mark the location of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

This was a real failure. First time out shooting with a newly modified (H-alpha) Nikon Z7. I did not know the camera sufficiently, so my attempted custom settings of ISO 1600 or 2000 were replaced by the camera selecting auto ISOs of 160 and 250-280 - DOH!

Despite the major faux pas, I stacked these in StarrySkyStacker. Now, is that a faint aurora at the horizon, as was forecast, or the distant glow of Cooma? The waxing half-moon was still up of course, so overall viewing remained compromised.

8 light frames and 5 dark, all at a mere ISO160!

(File: Astro-ISO160_Z7A1845-58-Dark Median)