Well, it’s not really wildlife, but on this site astronomy photos fall under that rubric. Reader Tim Anderson from Australia sent us a nice galaxy pic. His notes (click photo to enlarge):
The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy lies approximately 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra. It will be about 14.999 million years before I Love Lucy comes to the attention of any intelligent life in that neighbourhood.
The image is a combination of forty 240-second frames captured with a 100mm refracting telescope and a colour astronomical camera.
Beautiful!
And I apologize but this is a genuinely naive question:
How is it that objects between the galaxy and the lens do not interfere? How does one plan this shot? I figure there could be earthlings that interfere as well – an owl flying by for instance.
All of the stars scattered across the image are objects between the galaxy and the lens. An owl flying past is possible but pretty unlikely; the field of view here is pretty small.
Also because the light is focused – that is, the focal plane is exactly at the galaxy, perhaps a celestial object in a line of sight but out of the focal plane is completely missing?
Not really, all celestial objects would be at “infinity” so would all be in focus.
Also fast moving objects can completely disappear over a 240 second exposure.
How long an exposure of the (presumably) CCD more likely to pick up cosmic rays?
Also, this is a small patch of sky. Wikipedia has the apparent diameter of the pinwheel at about twelve minutes of arc which is less than half the size of our sun or moon which each subtend about thirty minutes (half a degree)of arc.
Disambiguation: this is southern pinwheel in hydra. The larger pinwheel galaxy, found in ursa major i believe, is about thirty minutes across.
Also some of the small blobs do appear to be even more distant galaxies in the background.
Awe inspiring.
14.999 million years and Lucy will still have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Great pic.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/524599056569602933/
It always amazes me that we can get news from so far away (even if restricted) and that we can figure out how far away that is, too!
I see the number 2 in the galaxy’s arms. Great shot!
With only a little imagination, I can see other civilizations of sentient beings somewhere in that array of billions of stars. They can’t all be void and without form can they? If none exist, how’d we get here? Maybe we’ll have to wait for and answer until their version of I Love Lucy reaches us.
Impressive…Lucy in the sky with diamonds?
Great shot, Tim! Simply beautiful.
Wonderful photo!