Cetus Duo M77 and NGC 1055 Image Credit & Copyright: Dieter - TopicsExpress



          

Cetus Duo M77 and NGC 1055 Image Credit & Copyright: Dieter Willasch (Astro-Cabinet) Explanation: At the top right, large spiral galaxy NGC 1055 joins spiral Messier 77 in this sharp cosmic view toward the aquatic constellation Cetus. The narrowed, dusty appearance of edge-on spiral NGC 1055 contrasts nicely with the face-on view of M77s bright nucleus and spiral arms. Both over 100,000 light-years across, the pair are dominant members of a small galaxy group about 60 million light-years away. At that estimated distance, M77 is one of the most remote objects in Charles Messiers catalog and is separated from fellow island universe NGC 1055 by at least 500,000 light-years. The field of view is about the size of the full Moon on the sky and includes colorful foreground Milky Way stars (with diffraction spikes) along with more distant background galaxies.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 15:16:20 +0000

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