Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Dwingeloo 1, Gary Imm
Dwingeloo 1, Gary Imm

Dwingeloo 1

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Dwingeloo 1, Gary Imm
Dwingeloo 1, Gary Imm

Dwingeloo 1

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This very faint barred spiral galaxy is located only 13 million light years away in the constellation of Casseopeia at a declination of +59 degrees.  It faintly spans 1.3 arc-minutes in our visual apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 5000 light years, but the galaxy is actually much larger for reasons described below.

This galaxy was just discovered recently in 1994, because it is located in the Zone of Avoidance (that part of our sky where distant objects are heavily obscured by the Milky Way itself).  It was discovered not visually but by using the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory, which searched for neutral hydrogen radio emissions. The observatory is located in the town of Dwingeloo, which is in the Dutch province of Drenthe.

The extinction of this galaxy caused by our Milky Way gas and dust is estimated to be about 6 magnitudes.  Here is the galaxy discovery paper:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1995ApL%26C..31..227K

It is amazing to me that Dwingeloo 1 can barely be seen yet is believed to be comparable in size and mass to the Triangulum Galaxy.

Comments