Andrea Corsali was the first European to describe the Magellanic Cloud in 1515, but it became better known six years later when Ferdinand Magellan described his circumnavigation of the globe. Like the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud is not a nebula, but a galaxy in our neighbourhood. The distribution of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud indicates interactions with the Large Magellanic Cloud. In fact, both are connected to each other, but also to our Milky Way, by a band of hydrogen. The Small Magellanic Cloud has an apparent size of about 7 moons.
Two globular clusters can be seen in the lower part of the image. The one on the left is 47 Tucanae, the second brightest globular cluster in the sky.
Small Magellanic Cloud – NGC292