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Old 06-09-2019, 05:13 PM
Jimbus (Jim)
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Jimbus is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 6
SMC size confusion. What's going on???

Hello members
I would be very thankful if somebody could explain to me why the small magellanic cloud has an apparent diameter of over 5 degrees in our sky. It is listed as having a distance from our galaxy of about 200000 light years and a diameter of 7000 light years.
e.g.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Magellanic_Cloud

When I stick this into a calculator it shows that it should have a diameter about 2 degrees. ie Inverse Tan 7000/200,000 (Opposite / adjacent). Other astro information sites I have checked have similar numbers for diameter and distance.
Thanks in advance.
Jim

Last edited by Jimbus; 06-09-2019 at 06:24 PM. Reason: Clarity
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