Photographing the area around the Andromeda galaxy, Italian amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatiello noticed a faint glow in one of the images he received, which, as shown by further observations with professional telescopes, turned out to be a dwarf galaxy.
For the first time, a weak object that eventually received the designation Donatiello I in honor of the discoverer was seen on September 23, 2016 in an amateur 127 mm refractor during a deep inspection of the environment of the nearest large galaxy. The reason why this small diffuse object was not detected earlier is the star Mirach – a bright red giant in the constellation Andromeda. The light of the star simply eclipsed Donatiello I, and only a combination of 10 hours of observations allowed us to reveal the galaxy.
An impetus to a more detailed study of the dwarf galaxy was the post of Giuseppe Donatiello on Facebook, in which an amateur astronomer published a picture he received. After seeing the publication, David Martinez-Delgado, an astrophysicist from the Center for Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), turned to the discoverer to help him get observational time on professional telescopes for more detailed study of Donatiello I.
As a result, the images taken on the Galileo National Telescope and Gran Telescopio Canarias telescopes, firstly, confirmed that the faint glow is a dwarf galaxy, and, secondly, revealed some of its properties.
It turned out that Donatiello I is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy, in which star formation has practically ceased, which puts it on a par with small galaxies orbiting around the Milky Way and Andromeda. The distance to Donatiello I is from 8.1 to 11.4 million light years, that is, it lies in any case outside the Local Group and is not connected with it.
Interestingly, if Donatiello I is 10 million light-years away, it will probably be just 211 thousand light-years from the galaxy NGC 404, also known as the “Ghost of Mirach” because of the close proximity in the sky with the star of the same name, and could interact with her in the past.
The fact is that there are some hints of the recent astronomical collision of NGC 404 with a galaxy, the result of which is a ring-shaped region of active star formation. At the same time, Donatiello I looks a bit elongated. However, the authors of the study note that further confirmation of both objects will be required to confirm this interaction.
Today, as professional telescopes are getting bigger and faster, it is inspiring that amateur astronomers can still make important discoveries like this, revealing new aspects of the universe. And who knows what other wonders of space await their discovery tomorrow!
An amateur astronomer has discovered a galaxy hidden behind the light of the stars
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