Large Magellanic Cloud
A companion galaxy of the Milky Way, seen from the south as a detached piece of the Milky Way.
Tonight from
Rise, highest point and set are worked out on your device for the place above.
What it is
- Kind of object
- Galaxy
- Distance
- 163,000 light years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 0.13, easy to see with the eye
- Size in the sky
- About 20 times the width of the full Moon
- Constellation
- Dorado
- Catalogue
- ESO 56-115
Figures from OpenNGC, CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikipedia, “Large Magellanic Cloud”, CC BY-SA 4.0: 49.97 kpc (Pietrzyński et al. 2019); V from NED. All sources
Near it in the sky
- CanopusA yellow-white supergiant in Carina, about a hand span away.
- Small Magellanic CloudA galaxy in Tucana, about a hand span away.
- 47 TucanaeA globular cluster in Tucana, about a hand span away.
- AchernarA blue-white main-sequence star in Eridanus, about a hand span away.
- Southern PleiadesAn open cluster in Carina, about a hand span away.