June 30, 2017
On your birthday, photons that left distant stars before humans walked the Earth finally completed their journey. You began yours.
NGC 7814: The Little Sombrero in Pegasus
Birthday · June 30, 2017
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APOD published June 30, 2017. Credit: CHART32 Team. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Dominated by NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and central bulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. Very faint dwarf galaxies, potentially satellites of NGC 7814, have been discovered in deep exposures of the Little Sombrero.
Image credit: CHART32 Team