LMC, the Large Magellanic Cloud, wide field

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The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is an SBm galaxy (a Magellanic-type Barred dwarf Spiral galaxy) occupying a large patch of the Southern sky (15×13 degrees). It is a satellite of our own galaxy and it is gravitationally bound with the Small Magellanic Cloud (they orbit each other). The Magellanic Stream is a “bridge” of gas, stars and young star clusters that connects both galaxies. The LMC (together or not with the SMC) is the fourth most luminous galaxy in the Local Group, after M31, the Milky Way and M33. This image shows, in its lower right region, the many stars of the very apparent bar of this galaxy.

The 3×3 degrees image, shown here, contains many NGC, IC and N objects, notably NGC 2070, the Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2035 (left of upper center), NGC 2014 (the red fan-like nebula just right of upper center), NGC 2020 (the blue bubble just left of NGC 2014), NGC 1955 (upper right) or N44 (right of center, just below-right of NGC 1955). For all of these objects, a higher resolution image, taken with the CDK 20″, has been blended with the wide field image, in order to show greater detail in the structure of these nebulas. The individual images can be found here: NGC 2070, NGC 2035, NGC 2014 and NGC 2020, NGC 1955 and N44. All images were taken with narrowband filters, except (as usual) the stars, that were taken in RGB.