SMC · Small Magellanic Cloud
| Chinese name | 小麦哲伦云 |
|---|---|
| Type | Dwarf galaxy |
| Constellation | Tuc |
| RA | 00h53m |
| Dec | −73° |
| Apparent magnitude | 2.7ᵐ |
| Hemisphere | Southern |
| Best season | Autumn |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Focal length | 广角 24–135mm |
About
The Small Magellanic Cloud lies about 200,000 light-years away and is an irregular dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, visible to the naked eye as an elongated cloud spanning Tucana and Hydrus. Roughly 19,000 light-years across and over 4° in apparent size, it contains hundreds of millions of stars along with many emission nebulae and clusters. Gravitational interaction with the Large Magellanic Cloud and our Galaxy is tearing it apart and drawing out the Magellanic Stream. In the sky it sits beside the brilliant foreground globular cluster 47 Tucanae, forming a classic southern composition. It is highly photogenic in wide-field shots and a must-image target from the southern hemisphere.