Astronomy Picture of the Day 4-19-03

NASA ^ | 4-19-03 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2003 April 19

Spiral Galaxy In Centaurus
Credit: FORS1, VLT, ESO

Explanation: Centaurus, the Centaur, is one of the most striking constellations in the southern sky. The lovely Milky Way flows through this large constellation whose celestial wonders also include the closest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri, the largest globular star cluster in our galaxy, Omega Centauri, and the closest active galaxy, Centaurus A. Embraced by tightly wound spiral arms of bright blue star clusters, this gorgeous galaxy - cataloged as ESO 269-57 - also falls within Centaurus' borders. Seen behind a veil of foreground stars which lie within our own galaxy, this face-on spiral galaxy is about 150 million light-years away and 200,000 light-years across. The brighter foreground stars are marked by diffraction spikes caused by the telescope and yellow vertical stripes due to saturated digital camera pixels in the above Very Large Telescope image from the European Southern Observatory. Tantalizing wisps of more distant, faint galaxies are visible in the background.

[petuniasevan]

Vacation Announcement

I will be on vacation from June 2nd through June 9th.
If anyone would like to volunteer to post APOD during that time, please FReepmail me.
Otherwise the APOD will not be posted as I will be visiting relatives in California.

There are so many goodies in the southern skies - and many of them are not visible from the continental US! This particular galaxy is located at RA 13:10:04.5 dec. -46:26:10, which makes it effectively visible from about 35 degrees or less north latitude. So if your location is more southerly than that of Atlanta or Los Angeles, you might find this pretty spiral with a good telescope. ---Boy, I'm glad I have Starry Night Pro. It was the only thing that would cough up the MAGNITUDE of this galaxy, which is 12.5. So you will need a decent location south, dark skies, and a good 'scope.

Remember, you won't see an image like the above time exposure taken through a LARGE telescope. Here's a more modest image of this galaxy:

[petuniasevan]

[green team 1999]

Alpha Centauri,is 6.4 million light years away from earth, the nearest star.

[petuniasevan]

NO. Alpha Centauri is 4.6 light years from us.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.2 million light years away, for reference.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

I thought Proxima Centauri was the closest star. Help!

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping

[clifdweller]

Yea, Proxima is the closest.

Alpha is the brightest of three stars known as the Alpha Centauri system, which is Centauri A (Alpha) and B. Proxima is somtimes called Centauri C. But I don't believe it is a part of the true binary system of A and B. It may just be temporarily trapped. But it is closer than the two binary stars.

[petuniasevan]

See the March 23rd APOD for more information.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/872800/posts

Thanks for posting!