NGC247和伙伴们

2020 January 16

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 the shiny spiral NGC 253.

NGC247和伙伴们
影像来源及版权：拍摄 Eric Benson, 处理 – Dietmar Hager

说明: NGC247是一个直径约为70000光年的旋涡星系，比银河系要小。根据测量，它距离我们仅有1100万光年。从地球上看去,NGC247几乎是侧面朝向我们。这张照片中的主体就是NGC247，位于南天的鲸鱼座。星系盘的一侧有个明显的空洞，使它获得了“针眼星系”的别称。在这张清晰的星系照片中还可以看到很多的背景星系，尤其是左下侧有4个星系排成一列，被称为Burbidge星系链，这几个星系距离我们约3亿光年。NGC 247以及较明亮的旋涡状的NGC253都属于玉夫座星系群。