Galex and M83

Author: Tom* Comments(5)

M83 image from Galex. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/VLA/MPIA

Another southern hemisphere beauty, this one from Galex.  M83 can be seen very low in the sky from parts of the northern hemisphere too and my topography just allows it.  Click here for optical images and lots of good information from SEDS.

The Galex caption:

The outlying regions around the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, or M83, are highlighted in this composite image from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array in New Mexico. The blue and pink pinwheel in the center is the galaxy’s main stellar disk, while the flapping, ribbon-like structures are its extended arms.

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an ultraviolet survey telescope. Its observations, shown here in blue and green, highlight the galaxy’s farthest-flung clusters of young stars up to 140,000 light-years from its center. The Very Large Array observations show the radio emission in red. They highlight gaseous hydrogen atoms, or raw ingredients for stars, which make up the lengthy, extended arms.

Astronomers are excited that the clusters of baby stars match up with the extended arms, because this helps them better understand how stars can be created out in the “backwoods” of a galaxy.

In this image, far-ultraviolet light is blue, near-ultraviolet light is green and radio emission at a wavelength of 21 centimeters is red.

5 Comments so far

  1. MyAstrophoto on January 18th, 2009

    At first I thought that you took that image!
    I wish I could capture it someday… I need to go South :P

  2. Tom on January 18th, 2009

    I wish!!! It’s been too cold (below zero F) to use the scope, I’m afraid of damaging it. Whether that’s a valid concern or not I don’t know. The skies otherwise have been kind of bad, it’ll come together after a while.

  3. MyAstrophoto on January 18th, 2009

    I am sure that the temperature cannot damage the telescope. They are made for cold night – I couldn’t use my telescope for more than 6 months if it couldn’t resist minus degrees…

  4. Tom on January 18th, 2009

    What do you have for a scope? I do use my little one, (ETX-70), but the LX200 sits there. I suppose there is only one way to find out though :)

  5. MyAstrophoto on January 18th, 2009

    I had some telescopes (Meade, SkyWatcher, WO, Orion Optics, TAL, …) and I have never worried about the temperature…
    I don’t know, if you think that’s better…

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