Glitter galaxy An edge-on view of the ESO 318-13 galaxy

Esahubble_potw1249a_1024

esahubble_potw1249a December 3rd, 2012

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA 

The brilliant cascade of stars through the middle of this image is the galaxy ESO 318-13 as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Despite being located millions of light-years from Earth, the stars captured in this image are so bright and clear you could almost attempt to count them. Although ESO 318-13 is the main event in this image, it is sandwiched between a vast collection of bright celestial objects. Several stars near and far dazzle in comparison to the neat dusting contained within the galaxy. One that particularly stands out is located near the centre of the image, and looks like an extremely bright star located within the galaxy. This is, however, a trick of perspective. The star is located in the Milky Way, our own galaxy, and it shines so brightly because it is so much closer to us than ESO 318-13. There are also a number of tiny glowing discs scattered throughout the frame that are more distant galaxies. In the top right corner, an elliptical galaxy can be clearly seen, a galaxy which is much larger but more distant than ESO 318-13. More interestingly, peeking through the ESO 318-13, near the right-hand edge of the image, is a distant spiral galaxy. Galaxies are largely made up of empty space; the stars within them only take up a small volume, and providing a galaxy is not too dusty, it can be largely transparent to light coming from the background. This makes overlapping galaxies like these quite common. One particularly dramatic example of this phenomenon is the galaxy pair NGC 3314 (heic1208).

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1249a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
ESO 318-13
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy
Esahubble_potw1249a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 10h 47m 40.3s
DEC = -38° 51’ 22.4”
Orientation
North is 157.3° CW
Field of View
2.1 x 2.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Antlia

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Orange Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Orange
Cyan
Esahubble_potw1249a_1280
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ID
potw1249a
Subject Category
C.5  
Subject Name
ESO 318-13
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA 
Release Date
2012-12-03T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1249a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Orange, Cyan
Band
Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, V
Central Wavelength
814, 606
Start Time
Integration Time
900, 900
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
161.917843651, -38.8562157453
Reference Dimension
2531.0, 2940.0
Reference Pixel
1265.0, 1470.0
Scale
-1.39085570744e-05, 1.39085570744e-05
Rotation
-157.32000000000002
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
potw1249a
Metadata Date
2012-10-31T16:46:01+01:00
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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