NGC 3810: A picture-perfect spiral

Esahubble_potw1006a_1024

esahubble_potw1006a May 31st, 2010

Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

The bright galaxy NGC 3810 demonstrates classical spiral structure in this very detailed image from Hubble. The bright central region is thought to be forming many new stars and is outshining the outer areas of the galaxy by some margin. Further out the galaxy displays strikingly rich dust clouds along its spiral arms. A close look shows that Hubbles sharp vision also allows many individual stars to be seen. Hot young blue stars show up in giant clusters far from the centre and the arms are also littered with bright red giant stars. The original images were acquired by astronomers studying a supernova discovered late in the year 2000. It was the second supernova found in the galaxy in quick succession following another discovered in 1997. NGC 3810 is located about 50 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Leo (the lion). It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 and is easily seen as a faint smudge in small telescopes. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys captured this image of NGC 3810. It was observed through three filters letting through blue, green and near-infrared list respectively (F435W, F555W and F814W). The exposure times were about seven minutes per filter and the field of view is about 3.4 x 1.7 arcminutes.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1006a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 3810
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Activity > Starburst
Esahubble_potw1006a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 11h 40m 58.3s
DEC = 11° 28’ 2.5”
Orientation
North is 66.1° CCW
Field of View
3.2 x 1.6 arcminutes
Constellation
Leo

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 435.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw1006a_1280
×
ID
potw1006a
Subject Category
C.5.3.3  
Subject Name
NGC 3810
Credits
ESA/Hubble and NASA
Release Date
2010-05-31T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1006a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, V, B
Central Wavelength
814, 555, 435
Start Time
Integration Time
420, 420, 420
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
175.243051201, 11.4673605986
Reference Dimension
3841.0, 1935.0
Reference Pixel
1920.0, 967.0
Scale
-1.38728306668e-05, 1.38728306668e-05
Rotation
66.080000000000013
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
potw1006a
Metadata Date
2010-05-25T14:09:06+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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