Clouds Of Magellan.

When the Portuguese explorer Magellan ventured into the southern hemisphere, he noticed two strange blobs of light that lingered in the night sky. Unable to give an explanation of what they were, he simply called them clouds. They are now known as the clouds of Magellan. These objects are in fact our closest galactic neighbours, at between 170,000 and 195,000 light years distant. Each of these dwarf galaxies contains around 10 billion stars, and are popular targets for amateur telescopes. Beautiful as they are, they are also doomed; they are believed to be trapped by the Milky Way's gravity, and are destined to be assimilated into her. Photo details: Minolta camera, 11 minute exposure with a 28mm lens @ f-2.8, Kodak Elitechrome 200 slide film.

 Image taken July 26th 2003