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| C30, The Deer Lick Group. Image above cropped from original, and downsized for display here. |
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What an exciting and beautiful picture! No??? The casual observer may not look at it that way , but the interest in this picture is that it shows a big galaxy with a number of small galaxies around it. The situation you see here turns out to be the norm for large galaxies. Our own Milky Way, which is considered to be a large galaxy, has several small satellite galaxies around it too, the most prominent of which are the Large and Small Magellanic clouds. (not visible from the northern hemisphere). So does our sister galaxy, Andromeda with M32 & M110. Astronomers believe galaxies get large by gobbling up little ones. The big ones get bigger, and the little ones get eaten. |
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10"
F6.3 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, Modified Canon 300D camera at Prime Focus |