Hubble image archive
A Sea of Spiral Galaxies
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 variou...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2017
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2017-14-4021-image
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)Image Details
| 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. |
Downloads
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov