July 2017 - Picture of the Month
The Small Magellanic Cloud in Tucana
Inspired by one of our speakers at this year's Annual Meeting, Bernhard Hubl, I thought I'd feature another southern gem. So I raided his Chile archives for something suitable, and I think I found it.
This is a galaxy that looks more like a cluster in this image due to it's close proximity (only 200,000 lightyears). I particularly like the composition with NGC 104 nearby, but there are a host of NGCs in this frame if you care to find them all.
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of those objects that I'm unlikely to see with my own eyes, but it certainly looks glorious captured with a DSLR. I'll probably move back north next month, but southern observers are lucky people 😊
James Whinfrey - Website Administrator.