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Our neighbouring galaxies

Started by A.S.I.G.N_Baz, Aug 30, 2011, 12:34:35

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A.S.I.G.N_Baz

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs (≈160,000 light-years), the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way. It has a mass equivalent to approximately 10 billion times the mass of our Sun (1010 solar masses), making it roughly 1/100 as massive as the Milky Way, and a diameter of about 14,000 light-years.

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

Each image is a stack of around 8 subframes of five minutes each. Taken with a 5DMK II and 70-200 f/4L at 70mm. Star tracking was done with the camera mounted to my EQ6 pro telescope mount.






PhilB

Both the LMC and SMC must look incredible in a telescope, to say nothing of NGC104 (47 Tucanae) and NGC 362 Globular Clusters that you've also captured with the SMC.  Is there a little vignetting to the left of both images? Still very nice work though.
"Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do."  Robert A. Heinlein

A.S.I.G.N_Baz

Quote from: PhilB on Aug 30, 2011, 18:39:31
Both the LMC and SMC must look incredible in a telescope, to say nothing of NGC104 (47 Tucanae) and NGC 362 Globular Clusters that you've also captured with the SMC.  Is there a little vignetting to the left of both images? Still very nice work though.
Yes it is a little vignetting, but it's not through a telescope. Its a 70-200mm Canon lens. :)