The Southern Pinwheel

Eso_m83_1024

eso_m83 December 3rd, 2009

Credit: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler, S. Guisard (www.eso.org/~sguisard) and C. Thöne

Located about 15 million light-years away towards the Hydra (the sea serpent) constellation, Messier 83 is a nearby face-on barred spiral with a classic grand design form. It is the main member of a small galactic group including NGC 5253 and about 9 dwarf galaxies. Messier 83 stretches over 40,000 light-years, making it roughly 2.5 times smaller than our own Milky Way. However, in some respects, Messier 83 is quite similar to our own galaxy. Both the Milky Way and Messier 83 possess a bar across their galactic nucleus, the dense spherical conglomeration of stars seen at the centre of the galaxies. Messier 83 has been a prolific producer of supernovae, with six observed in the past century. This is indicative of an exceptionally high rate of star formation coinciding with its classification as a starburst galaxy. Despite its symmetric appearance, the central 1,000 light-years of the galaxy shows an unusually high level of complexity, containing both a double nucleus and a double circumnuclear starburst ring. The nature of the double nucleus is uncertain but the off centre nucleus could be a remnant core of a small galaxy that merged with Messier 83 in the past. The star clusters in the nuclear starburst rings are mostly young stars between 5 and 10 million years old. This image is based on data acquired with the 1.5-metre Danish telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, through three filters (B, V, R).

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/m83/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Messier 83
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Eso_m83_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 13h 36m 57.8s
DEC = -29° 52’ 52.8”
Orientation
North is 1.6° CW
Field of View
15.6 x 14.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Hydra

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red ESO-Danish-1.54m (None) Optical (R) -
Green ESO-Danish-1.54m (None) Optical (V) -
Blue ESO-Danish-1.54m (None) Optical (B) -
Eso_m83_1280
×
ID
m83
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
Messier 83
Credits
ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler, S. Guisard (www.eso.org/~sguisard) and C. Thöne
Release Date
2009-12-03T23:20:32
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/m83/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Danish 1.54-metre telescope, Danish 1.54-metre telescope, Danish 1.54-metre telescope
Instrument
None, None, None
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
R, V, B
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
204.2408224, -29.8813389763
Reference Dimension
1280.0, 1167.0
Reference Pixel
676.0, 533.0
Scale
-0.000203164657184, 0.000203164657184
Rotation
-1.57421736426
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.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
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
m83
Metadata Date
2009-05-08T16:23:40+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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