Maffei I and Maffei II galaxies (cutout)
from WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer) raw data and wide field imaging
Credit: NASA/IPAC/IRSA, Giuseppe Donatiello
Maffei I
RA 02h 36m 35.4s DEC +59° 39′ 19″
Maffei I (1) is a massive elliptical galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia as part of the IC 342/Maffei Group. Maffei 1 is situated at an estimated distance of 2.85 ± 0.36 Mpc from the Milky Way.
Maffei II
RA 02h 41m 55.1s DEC+59° 36′ 15″
Maffei II (2) is an intermediate spiral galaxy at about the same distance of Maffei 1, 10 million light-years away.
Maffei 1 and Maffei 2 were both discovered by Paolo Maffei in 1968 from their infrared emission. They were the only "Italian" galaxies until the discovery, 50 years later, of the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Donatiello I, discovered in September 2016 by me [D. Martínez-Delgado et al. 2018 - A&A 620, A126 (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833302 ]
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a NASA infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope launched in December 2009 and re-activated in 2013 as NEOWISE. It performed an all-sky survey in 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 μm wavelength, using a 40 cm mirror telescope. Each image covers a 47 arcminute FOV at 6 arcsecond/pixel resolution.
This hybrid image uses a mosaic of images taken with Tair 3-S 300mm f /4.5 telephoto lens with Canon EOS 4000D DSLR.
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