APOD: 2024 October 2 – The Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy

Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to the October 2nd edition of Astronomy PIcture of the Day (APOD). I expect most of us (including me) have only seen pictures of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. The first confirmed recorded observation was in 1503–1504 by Amerigo Vespucci in a letter about his third voyage, although a possible reference to the LMC is found in the writings of the medieval astronomer 'Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi Shirazi (later known in Europe as "Azophi") around 964 AD. The galaxy lies 163,000 light years from Earth.