AAO image reference UKS 14. « Previous || Next »
Top left is NE. Image width is about 6 degrees
Image and text © 1984-2002, Anglo-Australian Observatory/Royal Obs. Edinburgh.
Photograph from UK Schmidt plates by David Malin.
The source file of this image is available as a ~23 x 28cm 600dpi TIF file (~100Mb)
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The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way but less than one tenth as massive; even so it contains the equivalent of over ten billion solar masses of material in the form of stars, gas and dust. The LMC is at a distance of 160,000 light years and is visible to the unaided eye from southern latitudes, rather like a detached piece of the Milky Way. The nearness of the LMC ensures that it is well resolved into stars in quite a modest telescope, and deep photographs reveal it to be a highly complex system with large numbers of clusters, nebulae and dust clouds scattered apparently at random across the face of the galaxy. The bright red patch at the eastern end of the galaxy is the star-forming region 30 Doradus.
Related images
MISC 21. The two Magellanic Clouds
UKS 17. The Small Magellanic Cloud
AAT 33. The Henize 70 Nebula in the LMC
AAT 44. The Tarantula nebula in the LMC
AAT 68. The bright stars around 30 Doradus in the LMC
UKS 14a. The eastern end of the Large Magellanic Cloud
UKS 15. The 30 Doradus Nebula in the LMC
UKS 15a. Around the 30 Doradus Nebula in the LMC
UKS 16. Star Clouds North of the LMC
UKS 27. The Henize 44 nebula in the LMC
UKS 28. The Henize 55 nebula in the LMC
More data about the LMC is reproduced with permission from the NASA/IPAC
Extragalactic Database (NED)
For details of object position and photographic exposure, search technical table by UKS reference number.
Image availability: 2004 calendar