                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2024 November 1

                           Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744
                    Image Credit & Copyright: John Hayes

   Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000
   light-years across, larger than our own Milky Way. It lies some 30
   million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo but
   appears as only a faint smudge in the eyepiece of a small telescope. We
   see the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of
   sight in this remarkably deep and detailed galaxy portrait, a
   telescopic image that spans an area about the angular size of a full
   moon. In it, the giant galaxy's elongated yellowish core is dominated
   by the light from old, cool stars. Beyond the core, grand spiral arms
   are filled with young blue star clusters and speckled with pinkish star
   forming regions. An extended arm sweeps past smaller satellite galaxy
   NGC 6744A at the upper left. NGC 6744's galactic companion is
   reminiscent of the Milky Way's satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic
   Cloud.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
                NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

