Malin_LMCuks.gif and Malin_LMC.jpg ================ ============= AAO image reference UKS 14. (c) Anglo-Australian Observatory/Royal Observatory, Edinburgh Photograph from UK Schmidt plates by David Malin, text ) David Malin. The image in this page was obtained by David Malin with the Anglo-Australian Telescope. This image is copyrighted and may be used for private purpose only. For any other kind of use, including internet mirroring and storing on CD-ROM, please contact Coral Cooksley of the Anglo Australian Observatory. More information on this image (David Malin: ) The Large Magellanic Cloud, LMC =============================== Irregular Galaxy LMC, the Large Magellanic Cloud in Dorado Right Ascension 5 : 23.6 (h:m) Declination -69 : 45 (deg:m) Distance 179.0 (kly) Visual Brightness 0.1 (mag) Apparent Dimension 650x550 (arc min) The Large Magellanic Cloud, together with its apparent neighbor and relative, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are conspicuous objects in the southern hemisphere, looking like separated pieces of the Milky Way for the naked eye. They were certainly known since the earliest times by the ancient southerners, but these people produced little documents which are still preserved. So it was Magellan and his discovery expedition who brought them to our knowledge in 1519. Both Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies orbiting our Milky Way galaxy, and thus are members of our Local Group of galaxies. The Large Magellanic Cloud, at its distance of 179,000 light years, was longly considered the nearest external galaxy, until in 1994, the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy was discovered at only about 80,000 light years. (Our current distance value takes into account the corrected Cepheid distance scale based on the Hipparcos satellite data published in early 1997.) Although a small irregular galaxy, the LMC is full of interesting objects including diffuse nebulae (especially the Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2070, a giant H II region), globular and open clusters, planetary nebulae, and more. On February 24, 1987, supernova 1987A occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which was the nearest observed supernova since Keplers, which occured before the invention of the telescope. Supernova 1987A, peculiar and of type II, was one of the most interesting objects for the astrophysicists in the 1980s (some even say of this century). The Large Magellanic Cloud ========================== (http://www.aao.gov.au/local/www/dfm/uks014.html) (LMC) is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way but less than one tenth as massive; even so it contains the equivalent of over ten billion solar masses of material in the form of stars, gas and dust. The LMC is at a distance of 160,000 light years and is visible to the unaided eye from southern latitudes, rather like a detached piece of the Milky Way. The nearness of the LMC ensures that it is well resolved into stars in quite a modest telescope, and deep photographs reveal it to be a highly complex system with large numbers of clusters, nebulae and dust clouds scattered apparently at random across the face of the galaxy. The bright red patch at the eastern end of the galaxy is the star-forming region 30 Doradus.