Large Magellanic Cloud
About 163 thousands of light years from us, the dwarf spiral galaxy, satellite galaxy of our Milky Way called Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) makes itself as one of the most beautiful close objects in the Universe. Named after legendary explorer Ferdinand Magellan and located not far from the South Celestial Pole, it can be seen by naked eyes mostly from the southern hemisphere and usually takes the central stage in many nightscapes. Deep imaging of the galaxy reveals a pretty complicated structure of stellar matter along the central bar and many emission nebulae where new stars are being born. Most prominent is the Tarantula Nebula.
Image was taken from Maria Julieth Restrepo stargazing place nearby Pucon, Chile, on 16 December 2020. Used Canon 6D modified, Tamron 70-300mm@135mm, f3.5, ISO 3200, 18×2 min. from Vixen GP-2 mount.
I would like to acknowledge support for the Solar Wind Sherpas eclipse expedition to Chile, PI Shadia R. Habbal of the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, support from the National Science Foundation, grant: ATM 08-02520, and Institute of Physics (projects Inter-Inform LTI17018 and ESF project CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/18_054/0014696), Silesian University in Opava, without whom this image would not have been made possible.
