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

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2.2 MB
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Coordinates

ObjectValue
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