Magellanic Cloud – The Amazing Sky

It sits not far away in the deep southern sky from its larger counterpart, but it must feel rather inferior and sadly neglected. Pity as this object does have lots to offer.

This is the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way and a companion to the Large Magellanic Cloud — each is named for Ferdinand Magellan who noted them on his pioneering circumnavigation voyage of the world in the 16th century. The Small Cloud doesn’t contain the number and complexity of nebulas and clusters as does its larger brother, but it does have some lovely offerings, like the complex of cyan-coloured nebulas and related clusters at top.

However, the notable sights in this area of sky aren’t actually part of the SMC. The two globular clusters in the field lie much closer to us. NGC 362 is a nice globular at top, but it pales in comparison (every such object does) next to the amazing object known as 47 Tucanae, or NGC 104, the huge globular cluster at right. It is a wonderful sight in any telescope.

This is a stack of five 7-minute exposures with the Borg 77mm f/4 astrograph and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800. I took this on my astrophoto trip to Australia in December 2010, a season when this object is ideally placed for viewing. Most times of the year, the SMC is dragging close to the horizon and lost in the murk, as least for shooting. That’s another reason the poor old SMC gets no respect!

It occupies only a binocular field or two in the sky but … Wow! What a field it is! This is one of the objects that makes a trip to the southern hemisphere for astronomy worth the trek alone. This satellite galaxy of our Milky Way is visible only from south of the equator. It contains so many clusters and nebulas, many in the same telescope field, that just sorting out what you are looking at takes a good star atlas (most don’t plot this region well). This is one of my best shots of the “LMC,” taken on my December Oz trip. It is with the Borg 77mm f/4 astrographic lens/telescope and the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII, that picks up much more red nebulosity (that emits deep red wavelengths) that stock cameras don’t record well.

Even so, I’m always amazed at how so many nebulas in the LMC, and in its smaller counterpart, the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud, record as magenta or cyan, rather than deep red. The most prominent object is the Tarantula Nebula at left of centre. It is an amazing sight in any telescope, especially with a nebula filter.

This is a stack of five 7-minute exposures at ISO 800, with the scope on the AP 400 mount and guided with the SG-4 autoguider. This is a single image, framed to take in all the best stuff of the LMC. But to really get it all in with any detail requires a multi-panel mosaic. I’ve done those on previous trips and was hoping to re-do one on this last trip, with the better, sharper camera, the 5D MkII, and with the LMC higher in the sky than on earlier trips. But the lack of clear nights curtailed my plans.

But I’m happy with this one. Nice and sharp and with oodles of nebulosity. But one can never exhaust what this object has to offer, both for imaging and for just looking with the eyepiece. So there’s always next time!