Pleiades and Sculptor's Galaxy in Astronomy Images of the Week

Every week, on the Program Spatial Gazewe present two astronomical images that stood out last week. And last week, we showed two images obtained during the 11th Paraíba Astrophotography Meeting, held in the Sertão Nordestino between August 30th and September 1st.

Pleiades

The first image is a beautiful record of the Pleiades, one of the easiest star clusters to observe with the naked eye. Identified as M45 in the Messier Catalogue, the Pleiades are also popularly known as “Seven Stars” or “Rosary”. The cluster is dominated by young, hot blue stars, formed in the last 100 million years. The brightness of the most luminous stars is reflected in the cloud of dust present in the interstellar medium surrounding the cluster. The Pleiades are located about 400 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Taurus.

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The second image is a magnificent record of the Sculptor Galaxy, or NGC 253, located at least 10 million light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Sculptor. It is a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 200 thousand light-years. Astronomers believe that the Sculptor Galaxy is undergoing a “star boom,” a period of intense star formation, which gives it enough brightness to be detected by small telescopes. At its core lies a supermassive black hole, with about 5 million solar masses.

Paraíba Astrophotography Meeting

This week's Astronomical Images were chosen from some of the images obtained during the 11th EPA! Paraíba Astrophotography Meeting, which takes place annually in the small town of Maturéia, in the Sertão region of Paraíba. The meeting is organized by the Paraíba Astronomy Association, in partnership with Casarão do Jabre and the IFPB Astronomy Teaching and Research Center and, despite having been designed to receive an audience from the state, it has participants from all over the country. The event is aimed at amateur astronomers, astrophotographers, and people interested in photographing and contemplating a truly dark sky that only places far from large centers can provide.