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.

                               2021 January 1

                    Galaxies and the South Celestial Pole
             Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horalek, Josef Kujal

   Explanation: The South Celestial Pole is easy to spot in star trail
   images of the southern sky. The extension of Earth's axis of rotation
   to the south, it's at the center of all the southern star trail arcs.
   In this starry panorama streching about 60 degrees across deep southern
   skies the South Celestial Pole is somewhere near the middle though,
   flanked by bright galaxies and southern celestial gems. Across the top
   of the frame are the stars and nebulae along the plane of our own Milky
   Way Galaxy. Gamma Crucis, a yellowish giant star heads the Southern
   Cross near top center, with the dark expanse of the Coalsack nebula
   tucked under the cross arm on the left. Eta Carinae and the reddish
   glow of the Great Carina Nebula shine along the galactic plane near the
   right edge. At the bottom are the Large and Small Magellanic clouds,
   external galaxies in their own right and satellites of the mighty Milky
   Way. A line from Gamma Crucis through the blue star at the bottom of
   the southern cross, Alpha Crucis, points toward the South Celestial
   Pole, but where exactly is it? Just look for south pole star Sigma
   Octantis. Analog to Polaris the north pole star, Sigma Octantis is
   little over one degree fom the the South Celestial pole.

                      Tomorrow's picture: apollo's muse
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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