Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax galaxy cluster. This enlargement of the Fornax cluster image shows the galaxy before and few days after the explosion of the bright Ia supernova SN2012fr, discovered on October 27. The supernova is the bright blue star close to the galaxy core (text adapted from APOD). Apo TEC140 (140/f7.2) - FLI Proline 16803 - L (720m) R (340m) G (250m) B (270m) - Warrumbungle Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of startling sights like NGC 1316. Their investigation indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that started, about 100 million years ago, to devour a smaller spiral galaxy neighbor, NGC 1317, just above it. Supporting evidence includes the dark dust lanes characteristic of a spiral galaxy, and faint swirls of stars and gas visible in this wide and deep image. What remains unexplained are the unusually small globular star clusters, seen as faint dots on the image. Most elliptical galaxies have more and brighter globular clusters than NGC 1316. Yet the observed globulars are too old to have been created by the recent spiral collision. One hypothesis is that these globulars survive from an even earlier galaxy that was subsumed into NGC 1316 (text adapted from APOD). Apo TEC140 (140/f7.2) - FLI Proline 16803 - L (440m) R (200m) G (200m) B (200m) - Warrumbungle Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and is a well known satellite of our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 55 is more like 6 million light-years distant and is a member of the Sculptor Galaxy Group. Classified as an irregular galaxy, in deep exposures the LMC itself resembles a barred disk galaxy. However, spanning about 50,000 light-years, NGC 55 is seen nearly edge-on, presenting a flattened, narrow profile in contrast with our face-on view of the LMC. Just as large star forming regions create emission nebulae in the LMC, NGC 55 is also seen to be producing new stars. This galaxy portrait highlights a bright core crossed with dust clouds, telltale pinkish star forming regions, and young blue star clusters in NGC 55 (text adapted from APOD). Apo TEC140 (140/f7.2) - FLI Proline 16803 - L (350m) R (120m) G (110m) B (120m) - Warrumbungle Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
