NGC 247及附近的天体

2024年9月5日

NGC 247 and Friends
Image Credit & Copyright: Acquisition – Eric Benson, Processing – Dietmar Hager

Explanation: About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy smaller than our Milky Way. Measured to be only 11 million light-years distant it is nearby though. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our perspective, it dominates this telescopic field of view toward the southern constellation Cetus. The pronounced void on one side of the galaxy’s disk recalls for some its popular name, the Needle’s Eye galaxy. Many background galaxies are visible in this sharp galaxy portrait, including the remarkable string of four galaxies just below and left of NGC 247 known as Burbidge’s Chain. Burbidge’s Chain galaxies are about 300 million light-years distant. NGC 247 itself is part of the Sculptor Group of galaxies along with shiny spiral NGC 253.

Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space

NGC 247及附近的天体
影像提供与版权: Acquisition – Eric Benson, Processing – Dietmar Hager

说明: 宽约70,000光年的NGC 247，是一个比我们银河系小的螺旋星系。它的距离只有1千1百万光年远，因此是银河系的近邻。从我们的视点看出去，几乎是侧向的这个星系，是这幅远眺南天鲸鱼座的望远镜影像里最庞大的天体。而这个星系盘面上的鲜明缺口，更为它博得针眼星系的雅号。在这幅清晰的星系影像里，还可看到许多背景星系，包括NGC 247左下方，距离在3亿光年左右，名为柏比奇链的4个成串星系。NGC 247和明亮的螺旋星系NGC 253，皆是玉夫座星系群的成员。

明日的图片: pixels in space