The Spider (and not its web)

Esahubble_potw2412a_1024

esahubble_potw2412a March 18th, 2024

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Tully, M. Messa

This gauzy-looking celestial body is UGC 5829, an irregular galaxy that lies about 30 million light-years away. Despite there not being many observations of this relatively faint galaxy, it has the distinction of having a descriptive soubriquet: the Spider Galaxy. Perhaps the distorted galactic arms with their glowing, star-forming tips bring to mind the clawed legs of an arachnid. Somewhat confusingly, there is another, very similarly nicknamed but otherwise entirely distinct, galaxy known as the Spiderweb Galaxy. This galaxy has also been more extensively imaged (notably by Hubble), despite the fact that it lies about 300 times further from Earth than the Spider Galaxy does.  Fortunately, correct galaxy identification does not depend on casual given names. Rather, known galaxies are recorded in at least one catalogue — and often in several — such as the Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies, which gives the Spider Galaxy its more formal title of UGC 5829. This same galaxy also has several different designations in various other catalogues: it is, for example, LEDA 31923 in the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database; MCG+06-24-006 in the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies; and SDSS J104242.78+342657.3 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Catalogue. The Spiderweb Galaxy isn’t recorded in all of the same catalogues — each is necessarily limited in scope — but it is included in the LEDA catalogue as LEDA 2826829. It is evidently simpler to not conflate the dull but distinct names LEDA 31923 and LEDA 2826829, than the fun but easily confused Spider and Spiderweb! [Image Description: An irregular galaxy, consisting of a large central body of dull-coloured stars, with distorted arms around it. The arms are spotted with brightly glowing pink areas where stars are forming, and bluish gas that is brighter than the galactic core. Two large arms flank the left and right of the body, and smaller streams of stars emerge from the top. Other, distant, galaxies can be seen on the edges of the image.] Links Pan of UGC 5829

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2412a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
UGC 5829
Esahubble_potw2412a_128
 

Position Details Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 10h 42m 42.1s
DEC = 34° 26’ 46.2”
Orientation
North is 179.9° CW
Field of View
3.0 x 2.9 arcminutes
Constellation
Leo Minor

Color Mapping Details Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (B) 438.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (WFC3) Optical (y) 547.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Red Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Red Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Blue
Cyan
Green
Red
Red
Esahubble_potw2412a_1280
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ID
potw2412a
Subject Category
Subject Name
UGC 5829
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Tully, M. Messa
Release Date
2024-03-18T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2412a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Blue, Cyan, Green, Red, Red
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
B, y, V, I, V
Central Wavelength
438, 547, 606, 814, 606
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
160.67526554864253, 34.44617420118644
Reference Dimension
4514.0, 4393.0
Reference Pixel
2257.0, 2196.5
Scale
-1.1003528282014882e-05, 1.1003528282014882e-05
Rotation
-179.94000000000011
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
https://esahubble.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
United States
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2412a
Metadata Date
2024-03-05T14:48:17+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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