NGC 1872: open or globular cluster?

Esahubble_potw1013a_1024

esahubble_potw1013a July 19th, 2010

Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

This spectacular NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture shows NGC 1872, a rich cluster of thousands of stars lying in our small neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This little-studied cluster is located in the constellation of Dorado (the Dolphinfish, a fish unrelated to the dolphin and which often appears on dinner menus under its Hawaiian name mahi-mahi). The Scottish astronomer James Dunlop was probably the first to spot NGC 1872 in 1826 with a small telescope near Sydney in Australia. Clusters are very interesting to astronomers because the stars in them all formed together in both space and time and hence the stars we see now are of similar ages and similar initial composition. Cluster studies have been vital in working out how stars evolve and the power of Hubble allows these studies to be taken beyond our own Milky Way and out into the Local Group of our neighbouring galaxies. Star clusters are usually classed as either open or globular but NGC 1872 has characteristics of both it is as rich as a typical globular but is much younger, and, like many open clusters, has bluer stars. Such intermediate clusters are common in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This image was acquired using the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. It was created from images taken through yellow (F555W) and near-infrared (F814W) filters, coloured blue and red in the image. The exposure times were 115 s and 90 s respectively and the field of view is about 3.0 by 1.5 arcminutes.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1013a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Large Magellanic Cloud NGC 1872
Subject - Local Universe
Star > Grouping > Cluster
Esahubble_potw1013a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 13m 11.3s
DEC = -69° 18’ 44.8”
Orientation
North is 66.8° CCW
Field of View
3.1 x 1.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Dorado

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen (V+I)) -
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Esahubble_potw1013a_1280
×
ID
potw1013a
Subject Category
C.3.6.4  
Subject Name
Large Magellanic Cloud, NGC 1872
Credits
ESA/Hubble and NASA
Release Date
2010-07-19T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1013a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Approximate distance in light years to the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Blue, Green, Red
Band
Optical, Optical, Infrared
Bandpass
V, Pseudogreen (V+I), I
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
78.2969045384, -69.3124434467
Reference Dimension
3666.0, 1767.0
Reference Pixel
1833.0, 883.5
Scale
-1.39015062263e-05, 1.39015062263e-05
Rotation
66.820000000000022
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
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
potw1013a
Metadata Date
2010-07-13T15:06:35+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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