This is a Hubble Space Telescope view of a small, random location on the sky, awash largely with spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. This sea of galaxies stretches across billions of light-years. Most of the prominent galaxies look different only because they are tilted at various orientations to Earth, from edge-on to face-on. A few others are involved in mergers. The objects with diffraction spikes are foreground stars in our own galaxy. The image was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) at the same time a much closer pair of spiral galaxies, NGC 4302 and NGC 4298, was being simultaneously photographed by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). These so-called "parallel field" observations increase the efficiency of how the telescope is used when making observations.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and M. Mutchler (STScI)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Parallel Field |
| Object Description | Field of galaxies |
| R.A. Position | 12h21m49.4s |
| Dec. Position | 14º28'41" |
| Constellation | Coma Berenices |
| Dimensions | The image is about 5 arcminutes wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | These datasets are from the HST proposal , M. Mutchler, J. Green, Z. Levay, D. Smith, and R. Villard (STScI), and image processing by J. DePasquale (STScI). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC |
| Exposure Dates | Jan. 2 - 22, 2017 |
| Filters | F606W |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope using the F606W (V) filter to isolating the light in broad wavelength range to produce a monochromatic image. |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
