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2010 September 23 00:39 SAST
New image of NGC 1365
A new image taken with the powerful HAWK-I camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the beautiful barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 in infrared light. NGC 1365 is a member of the Fornax cluster of galaxies and lies about 60 million light-years from
Earth.
NGC 1365 is one of the best known and most studied barred spiral galaxies and is sometimes nicknamed the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy because of its strikingly perfect form, with the straight bar and two very prominent outer spiral arms. Closer to the center there is also a second spiral structure and the whole galaxy is laced with delicate dust lanes.
While the bar of the galaxy consists mainly of older stars long past their prime, many new stars are born in stellar nurseries of gas and dust in the inner spiral close to the nucleus. The bar also funnels gas and dust gravitationally into the very center of the galaxy, where astronomers have found evidence for the presence of a super-massive black hole, well hidden among myriads of intensely bright new stars.
NGC 1365, including its two huge outer spiral arms, spreads over around 200,000 light-years. Different parts of the galaxy take different times to make a full rotation around the core of the galaxy, with the outer parts of the bar completing one circuit in about 350 million years. NGC 1365 and other galaxies of its type have come to more prominence in recent years with new observations indicating that the Milky Way could also be a barred spiral galaxy. Such galaxies are quite common -- two thirds of spiral galaxies are barred according to recent estimates, and studying others can help astronomers understand our own galactic home.
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2013 February 26 at 15:09
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2012 November 19 at 12:00
Massive star forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud — Dale Liebenberg images NGC 346, a gigantic star forming region in the SMC.
2012 August 22 at 09:44
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2012 July 16 at 17:23
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2012 May 06 at 13:20
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2012 March 03 at 08:00
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2011 December 13 at 10:50
Last but not least - Messier 103 — Anthony Ayiomamitis images Messier 103 in Cassiopeia.
2011 October 24 at 13:40
The Arkenstone of Thrain — Dale Liebenberg images Messier 22, the "Arkenstone of Thrain" according to Burnham.
2011 January 31 at 09:53 SAST
ConCards available — A handy set of beginner's star charts, "Constellation Cards" are now available for free download.
2010 November 17 13:04 SAST
Deep sky celebrations — Three deep sky observers of yore have birthdays this week: William Herschel (1738), the Fourth Earl of Rosse, and Stephane Javelle.
2010 November 03 at 17:11 SAST
Necklace Nebula featured on APOD — The recently-discovered planetary nebula nicknamed the Necklace Nebula, recently featured on APOD.
2010 October 21 12:07 SAST
Methuselah Nebula featured on APOD — The old bipolar planetary nebula MWP1, a.k.a. Methuselah Nebula, is today's APOD.
2010 October 02 18:32 SAST
New deepsky book from CUP — Deep sky author Wolfgang Steinicke's latest book, "Observing and Cataloguing Nebulae and Star Clusters: From Herschel to Dreyer's New General Catalogue", has just been published by Cambridge University Press.
2010 September 23 00:39 SAST
NGC 1365 in infrared (ESO VLT) — The bright barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 in Fornax has been imaged in the infrared with the ESO VLT telescope.
2010 September 16 19:41 SAST
New HST image of eta Carinae Nebula — New observations, combined with images made in 2005, show beautiful detail in part of the extensive eta Carinae Nebula.
2010 September 16 00:27 SAST
First planetary in open cluster found — A team of astronomers from Australia, the UK, the USA and France have discovered the first planetary nebula known to be associated with a galactic open cluster.
2010 September 09 00:44 SAST
NGC 300 in Sculptor imaged at ESO — The bright spiral galaxy NGC 300 has been imaged with the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
2010 September 01 03:13 SAST
Superwind galaxy NGC 4666 — A remarkable galaxy with very vigorous star formation has been newly imaged on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
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