The Blinking Galaxy

NGC 6118, a grand-design spiral galaxy, shines bright in this image, displaying its central bar and tight spiral arms from its home in the constellation of Serpens (The Snake). The galaxy is sometimes known to amateur astronomers as the “Blinking Galaxy” because this relatively faint, fuzzy object would appear to flick into existence when viewed through their telescopes in a certain orientation, and then suddenly disappear again as the eye position shifted. The brilliant blue star-forming regions of the galaxy, where hot young stars are born, are beautifully illuminated, even from over 80 million light-years away. In 2004, regular observers of this galaxy saw a “new star” appear near the edge of the galaxy (above the centre of the image). Far from being a new star, this object, supernova 2004dk, is in fact the final, powerful burst of light emitted by the explosion of a star.

Though shy to lesser telescopes, the galaxy cannot hide from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Cerro Paranal, Chile. The image was obtained using the VIsible MultiObject Spectrograph (VIMOS) at the VLT.

Kredit:

ESO

O snímku

Id:potw1022a
Typ:Pozorování
Datum zveřejnění:31. května 2010 10:00
Velikost:1902 x 1517 px

O objektu

Jméno:NGC 6118
Typ:Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Vzdálenost:80 milion světelné roky
Constellation:Serpens Caput
Kategorie:Galaxies

Image Formats

největší JPEG
548,5 KB

Zvětšovatelný


Pozadí

1024x768
160,4 KB
1280x1024
256,3 KB
1600x1200
380,7 KB
1920x1200
430,7 KB
2048x1536
573,2 KB

Souřadnice

Position (RA):16 21 48.62
Position (Dec):-2° 16' 59.29"
Field of view:6.53 x 5.21 arcminutes
Orientace:Sever je 180.0° levá od svislé osy

Barvy & filtry

PásmoVlnová délkaDalekohled
Optický
B
445 nmVery Large Telescope
VIMOS
Optický
V
551 nmVery Large Telescope
VIMOS
Optický
R
658 nmVery Large Telescope
VIMOS