Leo A (2014)

An important dwarf galaxy that you’ve probably never heard of said to be made of the primordial stuff of galaxies. Taken straight from the proposal (10590) for this image:

“Leo A is the best nearby candidate to be a redshift zero analogue to the major building blocks of the Milky Way.”

So, there you have it. If you want to study galaxy formation, I assume that it helps to have data on stuff like this.

I only wish that the composition and chip gap had a more satisfactory solution. The edges of the galaxy didn’t quite fit on the detector and some older WFPC2 data was available to fill the chip gap but only half of it. It’s hard enough to get people interested in what is most likely the commonest type of galaxy in the Universe without these aesthetic insults to hamper attempts at it.

Still, these data were quite comprehensive and with no less than 8 sets available for both channels, an incredibly smooth and cosmic-ray-free result is possible with minimal effort. It’s give and take in the world of limited Hubble time.

Red: Median stack of 8 ACS / WFC F814W panels
Green: Pseudo
Blue: Median stack of 8 ACS / WFC F475W panels

Chip gap filler:
Red: hst_05915_01_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: hst_05915_01_wfpc2_f439w_wf_sci

North is NOT up. It is 12.4° clockwise from up.

Copyright information:
Hubble data is public domain, but I put a lot of work into combining it into beautiful color images. The minimal credit line should read: NASA / ESA / J. Schmidt

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.