Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Tucana (Tuc)  ·  Contains:  47 Tuc Cluster  ·  NGC 104  ·  NGC 121  ·  NGC 292  ·  NGC 346  ·  NGC 371  ·  NGC 456  ·  NGC 465  ·  Small Magellanic Cloud
Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic, Eyal
Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic
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Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic

Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic, Eyal
Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic
Powered byPixInsight

Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic

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Description

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC - NGC 292), 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. The SMC contains a central bar structure, and astronomers speculate that it was once a barred spiral galaxy that was disrupted by the Milky Way to become somewhat irregular. At a distance of about 200,000 light-years, the SMC is among the nearest intergalactic neighbors of the Milky Way and is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye.

To the right is 47 Tucana (NGC 104), which is a globular cluster located in the constellation Tucana. It is about 4.0 ± 0.35 kpc (13,000 ± 1,100 ly) away from Earth, and 120 light years across. 47 Tuc can be seen with the naked eye, with an apparent magnitude of 4.1. It appears about 50 arcminutes across. Due to its far southern location, 18° from the south celestial pole, it was not catalogued by European astronomers until the 1750s, when the cluster was first identified by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille from South Africa.

47 Tucanae is the second brightest globular cluster after Omega Centauri, and telescopically reveals about ten thousand stars, many appearing within a small dense central core. The cluster may contain an intermediate-mass black hole.

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Small Magellanic Cloud - 110 hours LRGBHaOIII - 9 panel mosaic, Eyal