(ORDO NEWS) — Right in the center of this image, among a small number of distant stars and even more distant galaxies, is the dwarf galaxy Donatello II.
Donatello II is one of three newly discovered galaxies that have been extremely difficult to detect. All were missed by an algorithm designed to search for astronomical data on potential galaxy candidates.
Even the best algorithms have their limitations when it comes to distinguishing very faint galaxies from individual stars and background noise.
In these most difficult cases of identification, discovery must be done the old-fashioned way, by the person viewing the data.
The data that led to these discoveries was collected as part of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which lasted six years and was carried out using the dark energy camera (DECam) installed on the 4-meter Victor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
The DES data has been released to the public. Experienced amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatello painstakingly processed and analyzed pieces of DES data and made his discovery – three very faint galaxies, named Donatello II, III and IV, respectively.
All three are satellites of the well-known Sculptor Galaxy (otherwise known as NGC 253). This means that these faint galaxies are gravitationally bound to their much more massive companion.
This image is from the Hubble Space Telescope’s observing program.
Based on their own independent search, a team of astronomers led by Burchin Mutlu-Pakdil used Hubble to obtain long-exposure images of several faint galaxies, including Donatello II.
With the help of Hubble images, they were able to confirm their target galaxies’ association with NGC 253 – thus providing both independent confirmation of Donatello’s discovery and this new image.
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