Deep? Small Magellanic Cloud

[avandonk]

Gradients were a pain as usual especially on the RHS. This is panel one.

Image here 3MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2011_07/SMC_M.jpg


Exposures 20X(7s, 15s, 30s & 60s), 40X(120s & 240s) so deeper than usual.


Bert

[renormalised]

Nice shot, Bert. Plenty of detail in the SMC and in the globs:)

[avandonk]

Is it my imagination or are they dust clouds in the SMC? See the crop below.

[renormalised]

There should be....being an irregular, it should have quite a bit of gas and dust. The red bits are HII regions within the galaxy. If I remember correctly, the SMC has had 2-3 bouts of star formation, the last one being about 1Ga ago. The major one...when both it and the LMC got a little too close to one another and the Milky Way, was about 6Ga ago.

[Lester]

Very nice image Bert. The SMC usually appears a bit bland, but yours is really bringing out detail. Thanks for the view.