NGC 6744

High-Res

Object: NGC 6744

NGC 6744, a large barred spiral galaxy in the southern constellation Pavo the Peacock, is one of the galaxies most similar to our Milky Way in the local universe. Lying at a distance of about 30 million light-years from Earth, its disc stretches 175,000 light-years across, making it nearly twice the diameter of the Milky Way.  If we could escape the Milky Way and could look down on it from intergalactic space, it would look very much like NGC 6744.

The small, distorted companion galaxy NGC 6744A, which is an analog to our galaxy’s Large Magellanic Cloud, can be seen as a blob in the main galaxy’s outer arm at a 10:30 o’clock direction from the center.

This large galaxy subtends an angle of approximately 20 arc-minutes on the night sky, roughly two-thirds the diameter of the Moon.  In a small telescope it appears visually as a faint glow imbedded within a very rich star field.

Total exposure time was 16 hours 20 minutes. This image is the result of a collaborative effort between Howard Hedlund of Astro-Physics, Inc. and Dave Jurasevich.