A closer look at IC 5201

Esahubble_potw1650a_1024

esahubble_potw1650a December 12th, 2016

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

In 1900, astronomer Joseph Lunt made a discovery: Peering through a telescope at Cape Town Observatory, the BritishSouth African scientist spotted this beautiful sight in the southern constellation of Grus (The Crane): a barred spiral galaxy now named IC 5201. Over a century later, the galaxy is still of interest to astronomers. For this image, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope used its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to produce a beautiful and intricate image of the galaxy. Hubbles ACS can resolve individual stars within other galaxies, making it an invaluable tool to explore how various populations of stars have sprung to life, evolved, and died throughout the cosmos. IC 5201 sits over 40 million light-years away from us. As with two thirds of all the spirals we see in the Universe including the Milky Way, the galaxy has a bar of stars slicing through its centre.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1650a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
IC 5201 LEDA 27893
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Galaxy > Type > Barred
Esahubble_potw1650a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 22h 20m 59.2s
DEC = -46° 2’ 2.2”
Orientation
North is 112.8° CCW
Field of View
3.3 x 3.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Grus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Orange Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Esahubble_potw1650a_1280
×
ID
potw1650a
Subject Category
C.5.1.1   C.5.1.2  
Subject Name
IC 5201, LEDA 27893
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2016-12-12T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1650a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange
Band
Optical, Optical
Bandpass
V, I
Central Wavelength
606, 814
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
335.246566471, -46.0339337846
Reference Dimension
3924.0, 4053.0
Reference Pixel
1962.0, 2026.5
Scale
-1.38796970318e-05, 1.38796970318e-05
Rotation
112.77999999999999
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
potw1650a
Metadata Date
2016-05-03T14:54:48+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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