                  APOD: 2018 March 30 - NGC 247 and Friends

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2018 March 30
                                      [2]
                             NGC 247 and Friends
    Image Credit & Copyright [3] : CHART32 Team [4] , Processing - Johannes
                                 Schedler [5]

Explanation: About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy [6]
smaller than our Milky Way. Measured to be [7] only 11 million light-years
distant it is nearby though. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our
perspective [8] , it dominates this telescopic field of view toward the
southern constellation Cetus. The pronounced void on one side of the galaxy's
disk recalls for some its popular name, the Needle's Eye galaxy. Many
background galaxies are visible in this sharp galaxy portrait [9] , including
the remarkable string of four galaxies just below and left of NGC 247 known as
Burbidge's Chain. Burbidge's Chain galaxies are about 300 million light-years
distant. The deep image even reveals that the two leftmost galaxies in the
chain are apparently interacting, joined by a faint bridge of material. NGC
247 itself is part of the Sculptor Group of galaxies along with the shiny
spiral NGC 253 [10] .

                    Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend [11]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [23] (MTU [24] ) & Jerry Bonnell [25]
                                  (UMCP [26] )
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1803/NGC247_70mosSchedler.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://chart32.de/index.php/group
  [5] http://panther-observatory.com/
  [6] https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1107/
  [7] https://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2699
  [8] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/stars-galaxies/
  [9] http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/290
  [10] ap180322.html
  [11] ap180331.html
  [12] ap180329.html
  [13] archivepix.html
  [14] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [15] lib/aptree.html
  [16] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [17] calendar/allyears.html
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  [21] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=180330
  [22] ap180331.html
  [23] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [24] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [25] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [26] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
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