Quote:
Originally Posted by cazza132
LMC + SMC - looks like there may have been a collision between the two. Could the LMC actually be a spiral galaxy? Full spectrum modded 6D, Siggy 35mm f1.4 at f2.2, ISO1600, 20s,60s & 180s, on lens vis+Ha (Spencer's).
|
Hi Troy,
Indeed LMC is a barred (peculiar) spiral galaxy and its spiral structure was confirmed by Shapley in 1931. In one of the early papers - "
Studies of the Magellanic Clouds", De Vaucouleurs (1955) noted the faint 20-degree long filament stretching out of the LMC (see Plate II in the
paper). De Vaucouleurs estimated the luminosity of this filament at 25/26 mag/arcsec^2 - rather faint. I overlaid your inverted and stretched mage with the Plate II from the
paper and the long LMC streamer does match. Proper calibration would improve your data, but some of that faint stuff is indeed real. I attached a small animated gif and larger version is here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ouds140326.gif
Trying to find out about the possible collision between LMC and SMC I came across this
paper by Heller and Rohlfs (1994) where they model orbits of LMC and SMC and suggest that a close collision between the two occurred about 500 Million years ago. Later studies suggest an off center, moderate to highly-inclined collision between the SMC and the LMC's disk that took place between 100 and 200 Million years ago (
Casetti-Dinescu et al. 2012).
Cheers,
Alex