AAO image reference UKS 35. « Previous || Next »
Top left is NE. Image width is almost 2 degrees
Image and text © 2001-2002, Anglo-Australian Observatory. Photograph from UK Schmidt plates by David Malin.
Unlike almost every other image in this series, this picture was made of a random section of the southern sky, which happens to be in Pavo. It's a place fairly close to the galactic plane, so well sprinkled with stars. However, there is not much galactic dust here, so distant galaxies and clusters of galaxies are visible on the high resolution versions of this image. The brightest star visible here is the magnitude 4.2 variable blue star lambda Pav, visible to the the unaided eye in a dark sky, while the scattering of stars in the lower part of the picture are about a magnitude fainter and would be hard to see in all but the darkest conditions.
For details of object position and photographic exposure, search technical table by UKS reference number.