Behind a dusty veil lies a cradle of star birth
esahubble_opo9842a December 3rd, 1998
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)
NGC 253 is a large, almost edge-on spiral galaxy, and is one of the nearest galaxies beyond our local neighborhood of galaxies. This dramatic galaxy shows complex structures such as clumpy gas clouds, darkened dust lanes, and young, luminous central star clusters. These elements are typical of spiral galaxies. Caroline Herschel discovered NGC 253 in 1783 while looking for comets. The galaxy's closeness to Earth makes it an ideal target for amateur astronomers who can see the southern sky and for astronomers interested in learning more about the makeup of these stunning cities of stars.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9842a/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Full Size Image
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JPG (271 KB) Source File
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- opo9842a
- Subject Category
- C.5.1.1
- Subject Name
- IRAS 00450-2533, NGC 253
- Credits
- Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)
- Release Date
- 1998-12-03T06:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9842a/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Distance in light years from NED
- Facility
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Instrument
- WFPC2
- Color Assignment
- Band
- Bandpass
- Central Wavelength
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 11.8945062613, -25.2839683956
- Reference Dimension
- 948.0, 960.0
- Reference Pixel
- 474.0, 480.0
- Scale
- -4.32077390668e-05, 4.32077390668e-05
- Rotation
- 172.43999999999988
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- ESA/Hubble
- URL
- http://www.spacetelescope.org/
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
- City
- Garching bei München
- State/Province
- Postal Code
- D-85748
- Country
- Germany
- Rights
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Publisher
- ESA/Hubble
- Publisher ID
- esahubble
- Resource ID
- opo9842a
- Resource URL
- http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/original/opo9842a.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2003-12-09T17:52:32+01:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
