The Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years), the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spiral (c. 16 kiloparsecs (52,000 light-years) away), and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity. The Large Magellanic Cloud is about 9.86 kiloparsecs(32,200 light-years) across, is roughly one-hundredth the mass of the Milky Way and is the fourth-largest galaxy in the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Milky Way, and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33).

The LMC is classified as a Magellanic spiral. It contains a stellar bar that is geometrically off-center, suggesting that it was once a barred dwarf spiral galaxy before its spiral arms were disrupted, likely by tidal interactions from the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and the Milky Way's gravity. The LMC is predicted to merge with the Milky Way in approximately 2.4 billion years.

With a declination of about −70°, the LMC is visible as a faint "cloud" from the southern hemisphere of the Earth and from as far north as 20° N. It straddles the constellations Dorado and Mensa and has an apparent length of about 10° to the naked eye, 20 times the Moon's diameter, from dark sites away from light pollution.[Wikipedia]

The image presented here was made using my trusty old Nikon 180mm f2.8 ED-IS manual lens coupled to my ASI6200 MM Pro camera, hence the extremely wide field of view. The image is a blend of regular RGB as well as hydrogen-alpha (H-a). The aim here was to use the H-a in the red channel to really accentuate the emission nebulae within this object, of which there are many. Like many irregular galaxies, the LMC is rich in gas and dust, and is currently undergoing vigorous star formation. It holds the Tarantula Nebula, the most active star-forming region in the Local Group, which forms the very prominent region to the right and below the central bar in this image (HERE’S a closer look at the Tarantula). This deep image also shows the extensive, faint outer regions of this object.