Portrait of the Great Barred Spiral
noirlab_iotw2127a July 7th, 2021
Credit: Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURAImage processing: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), Jen Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin (NSF NOIRLab)
This image captures the elegant galaxy NGC 1365 in the Fornax Cluster of galaxies. Also known as The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 1365 is a strikingly perfect example of a barred spiral galaxy. This image shows the galaxy’s prominent bar and its graceful spiral arms, with lanes of dust obscuring the extended diffuse glow of stars. The central bar of NGC 1365 influences star formation throughout the entire galaxy and conceals a supermassive black hole hidden behind multitudes of newly formed stars. Astronomers are interested in barred spiral galaxies like NGC 1365 for more than just their elegance — these galaxies provide insights into our home galaxy, the Milky Way, which is also a barred spiral galaxy. This image was built up using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), an ambitious project which mapped hundreds of millions of galaxies across the Universe using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). The analysis of data from the Dark Energy Survey is supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the DECam science archive is curated by the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) at NSF NOIRLab. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and CSDC are Programs of NOIRLab. One of the highest-performance, wide-field CCD imagers in the world, the 570-megapixel DECam was designed specifically for the DES and operated by the DOE and NSF between 2013 and 2019. DECam was funded by the DOE and was built and tested at DOE's Fermilab. At present DECam is used for programs covering a huge range of science.
Provider: NOIRLab
Image Source: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2127a/
Curator: NSF's NOIRLab, Tucson, AZ, USA
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- iotw2127a
- Subject Category
- Subject Name
- NGC 1365
- Credits
- Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURAImage processing: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), Jen Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin (NSF NOIRLab)
- Release Date
- 2021-07-07T12:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2127a/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope
- Instrument
- DECam, DECam, DECam, DECam, DECam
- Color Assignment
- Red, Green, Red, Green, Blue
- Band
- Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
- Bandpass
- r, g, i, r, g
- Central Wavelength
- 646, 477, 785, 646, 477
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- None, None, None, None, None
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 53.4041558557, -36.1456514581
- Reference Dimension
- 3383.0, 3263.0
- Reference Pixel
- 1691.5, 1631.5
- Scale
- -7.30233441399e-05, 7.30233441399e-05
- Rotation
- 0.039999999999999994
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Creator (Curator)
- NSF's NOIRLab
- URL
- https://noirlab.edu
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- 950 North Cherry Ave.
- City
- Tucson
- State/Province
- AZ
- Postal Code
- 85719
- Country
- USA
- Rights
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Publisher
- NSF's NOIRLab
- Publisher ID
- noirlab
- Resource ID
- iotw2127a
- Resource URL
- http://noirlab.edu/public/media/archives/images/original/iotw2127a.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2024-12-09T11:05:12.963081
- Metadata Version
- 1.1
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
