Our neighbouring galaxies

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 7:30 pm

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.

Post by **Airconvent** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:16 pm

Hi Barry
Thanks for sharing. You're so lucky these 2 objects are so clearly visible down under! Its the large globular next to the SMC Tucana 47? [smilie=crying2.gif]

jimmyleong · Post by **jimmyleong** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 12:35 am

Beautiful pictures...... Ow I wish the skies are as clear and dark here...

Clifford60 · Post by **Clifford60** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:45 am

Very nice, lucky you to see LMC and SMC so clearly.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:07 pm

Thanks guys! I consider myself very blessed to live in such a place and am very grateful for it!

Baz.