The Perseus Cluster

Just occasionally, something pleases me so much that I want to put it up here just for a smile. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day was beautiful - and very familiar . . .

Credit: APOD. They also have individual APODs on NGC 7331 (the large spiral) and Stephan's Quintet (the disturbed cluster).

I went into SDSS, which we use at the zoo, and found a centre point, from which I zoomed out:

To find your own view of this, click here, then play with the zoom buttons (the + and - scale) and also the "width" and "height" options - all these buttons are on the left. This is 600 by 900 pixels. You can also click these pictures for larger versions.

Back in March, Jules wrote a wonderful Object of the Day about Stephan's Quintent. Did you know that these galaxies were used as angels having a chat in the film "It's a Wonderful Life"? Neither did I until I watched the youtube video in Jules's post!