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Spiral Galaxy Messier 83

If our Milky Way were to resemble this one, we certainly would be proud of our home ! The beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 83 [4] is located in the southern constellation Hydra (the Water Snake) and is also known as NGC 5236 and as the Southern Pinwheel galaxy. Its distance is about 15 million light-years. Being about twice as small as the Milky Way, its size on the sky is 11x10 arcmin2...

The image show clumpy, well-defined spiral arms that are rich in young stars, while the disc reveals a complex system of intricate dust lanes. This galaxy is known to be a site of vigorous star formation.

Credit:

ESO

About the Image

Id:eso0525b
Type:Observation
Release date:10 August 2005
Related releases:eso0525
Size:2048 x 2040 px

About the Object

Name:Messier 83
Type:• Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
• X - Galaxies
Distance:15 million light years
Constellation:Hydra

Coordinates

Position (RA):13 37 0.95
Position (Dec):-29° 51' 56.56"
Field of view:6.83 x 6.80 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 0.0° right of vertical
View in Worldwide Telescope:
View in WorldWide Telescope

Colours & filters

BandWavelengthTelescope
Optical
B
440 nm Very Large Telescope
FORS2
Optical
R
655 nm Very Large Telescope
FORS2
Infrared
H-alpha
656 nm Very Large Telescope
FORS2

Images

Large JPEG
2.3 MB
Screensize JPEG
440.8 KB

Wallpapers

1024x768
426.6 KB
1280x1024
686.2 KB
1600x1200
1000.3 KB
1920x1200
1.2 MB
2048x1536
1.9 MB

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