Astronomy Picture of the Day——NGC247和它的伙伴们

NGC 247 and Friends 
Image Credit & Copyright: Acquisition - Eric Benson

Explanation: About 70,000 light-years across, NGC 247 is a spiral galaxy smaller than our Milky Way. Measured to be only 11 million light-years distant it is nearby though. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from our perspective, 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, 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. NGC 247 itself is part of the Sculptor Group of galaxies along with the shiny spiral NGC 253.

NGC247和它的伙伴们

NGC247是一个直径约70,000光年的旋涡星系，比我们的银河系还要小。它距离地球仅有1100万光年。从地球上看去，NGC247几乎是侧面朝向我们的。NGC247位于南天的鲸鱼座，星系盘的一侧有个明显的空洞，使它获得了“针眼星系”的昵称。在这幅照片中还可以看到很多背景星系，尤其是左下方，4个星系排成一列，它们被称为伯比奇星系链，这几个星系距离地球约3亿光年。NGC 247以及较明亮的旋涡状的NGC253都属于玉夫座星系群。

高清原图地址：

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2001/NGC247hager.jpg

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