Astronomy Picture of the Day - Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-01 18:31:58 | Updated at 2024-11-05 23:28:07 4 days ago

Astronomy Picture of the Day - Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744
NASA ^ | 1 Nov, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: John Hayes

Posted on 11/01/2024 11:20:30 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo but appears as only a faint smudge in the eyepiece of a small telescope. We see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight in this remarkably deep and detailed galaxy portrait, a telescopic image that spans an area about the angular size of a full moon. In it, the giant galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms are filled with young blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star forming regions. An extended arm sweeps past smaller satellite galaxy NGC 6744A at the upper left. NGC 6744's galactic companion is reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.

TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

Dear FRiends, Our FReepathon Status:

For the time being, we will not be able to accept credit card donations, but our PayPal system still works, and of course mail-in donations still work fine.

By the way, it seems you don't need to have a PayPal account to use this feature. You can also donate by debit or credit card on the PayPal page.

Click here to donate by PayPal or credit/debit card

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you all very much, and God Bless you.

Jim and Chris

To be added or removed from the Astronomy Picture of the Day ping list please send me a request via "Private Reply" (Mail).

For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

1 posted on 11/01/2024 11:20:30 AM PDT by MtnClimber

To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 11/01/2024 11:20:45 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)

To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; Agatsu77; ...

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

3 posted on 11/01/2024 11:21:23 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Read Entire Article