又是經(jīng)典星云篇-NGC6744

Beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo but appears as only a faint, extended object in small telescopes. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight in this remarkably detailed galaxy portrait, a telescopic view that spans an area about the angular size of a full moon. In it, the giant galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms are filled with young blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star forming regions. An extended arm sweeps past smaller satellite galaxy NGC 6744A at the lower right. NGC 6744's galactic companion is reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.?

美麗的旋渦星系NGC6744直徑近17.5萬光年，比我們的銀河系更大。它位于南天星座孔雀座，距離我們大約3000萬光年遠(yuǎn)，在小型望遠(yuǎn)鏡中，它看起來只是一個(gè)暗弱的延展天體。在這張非常詳細(xì)的星系照片中，我們看到了這個(gè)近鄰島宇宙的盤面相對(duì)于我們視線的傾斜。這是一張望遠(yuǎn)鏡照片，覆蓋的區(qū)域大約相當(dāng)于滿月的角大小。畫面中，這個(gè)巨大星系橢長(zhǎng)的淡黃色星系核被古老的低溫恒星發(fā)出的光所主導(dǎo)。在星系核之外，巨大的旋臂密布著年輕的藍(lán)色星團(tuán)，并點(diǎn)綴著粉紅色的恒星形成區(qū)。一條延伸的旋臂掠過右下方較小的伴星系NGC6744A。NGC6744的星系同伴讓人想起銀河系的伴星系——大麥哲倫云。