Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, Messier 83
Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, Messier 83 (or NGC 5236) is a stunning face-on spiral galaxy located about 15 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydra. Its spiral arms are lined with dark lanes of dust and peppered with reddish, star-forming clouds of hydrogen gas. One of the deepest images ever taken of the Southern Pinwheel (combining more than 11 hours of exposure time), this view was captured with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was built by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and is mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Numerous background galaxies, which lie much farther away than Messier 83, appear around the edges of the image.
Credit:CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA
Acknowledgment: M. Soraisam (University of Illinois)
Image processing: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin
About the Image
Id: | noirlab2107a |
Type: | Observation |
Release date: | Feb. 8, 2021, 10:03 a.m. |
Related releases: | noirlab2107 |
Size: | 4063 x 2036 px |
About the Object
Name: | M83, Southern Pinwheel Galaxy |
Distance: | 15 million light years |
Constellation: | Hydra |
Category: | Galaxies |
Image Formats
Wallpapers
Coordinates
Position (RA): | 13 37 0.57 |
Position (Dec): | -29° 52' 7.86" |
Field of view: | 17.84 x 8.94 arcminutes |
Orientation: | North is 0.1° right of vertical |
Colors & filters
Band | Wave-length | Tele-scope |
---|---|---|
Optical u | 382 nm | Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope DECam |
Optical g | 486 nm | Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope DECam |
Optical r | 646 nm | Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope DECam |
Optical i | 785 nm | Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope DECam |
Optical H-alpha | 656 nm | Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope DECam |
Infrared z | 920 nm | Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope DECam |