Astronomy Picture of the Day 7-26-03

NASA ^ | 7-26-03 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

2003 July 26

Spiral Galaxy NGC 7742
Credit : Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/ STScI/ NASA)

Explanation: This might resemble a fried egg you've had for breakfast, but it's actually much larger. In fact, ringed by blue-tinted star forming regions and faintly visible spiral arms, the yolk-yellow center of this face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 7742, is about 3,000 light-years across. About 72 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7742 is known to be a Seyfert galaxy - a type of active spiral galaxy with a center or nucleus which is very bright at visible wavelengths. Across the spectrum, the tremendous brightness of Seyferts can change over periods of just days to months and galaxies like NGC 7742 are suspected of harboring massive black holes at their cores. This beautiful color picture is courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope Heritage Project.

[petuniasevan]

I'll make this quick because a thunderstorm is in my area.

NGC 7742 in Pegasus

Right Ascension:	23 : 44.3 (hours : minutes)
Declination:	+10 : 46 (degrees : minutes)
Apparent Magnitude:	11.5
Apparent Diameter:	2.0 (arc minutes)

[petuniasevan]

[BradyLS]

Flat-on Galaxy photos like these are always cool. They remind of the opening panel to The Jetsons!

*Cue music* "Reet Rorge Retson!"

[firewalk]

Thanks

[lonestar]

It also looks like a hurricane. Thanks again for your efforts. I look most days.