What Galaxies are those?

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[Rafiki]

Here is a question for all you budding astronomers.
In SGA episode 3x10 - The Return Part 1 and some other episodes pictures of real galaxies were used as background to pictures of the halfway station.

I assume that they were supposed to be pictures of the Pegasus galaxy but as we all know there is no Pegasus galaxy in our real universe.
There is only a Pegasus constellation which consists of a collection of stars and galaxies.


Now what i want to know is. The pictures of which real galaxies did they use as these backgrounds?
Here are some screen captures.
At 2 min 9 sec. in the episode




At 6 minutes 17 sec. in the episode:



And this group of galaxies at 6 minutes 22 sec. in the episode.


Here is a tip:
They modified pictures (probably from the Hubble telescope) slightly by blanking out some parts, but they are still readily recognizable.

[compman777]

well pictures one and two look like the Milkyway galaxy (the one we actually live in).

[Rafiki]

Well compman there is just one problem with your guess.
Where does one get a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy?
We're inside it and there is no way of getting a picture of it from outside the galaxy.

[compman777]

LOL, that is a good question, but if you ever go to a astronomy site or book and you look up the milky way galaxy that is the picture they give you. that is all the info I can give you

[Kosh GTO]

:) Slick of you Rafiki and your right.I thought it could be Andromeda, with a few modification.

Or they could make it any way they want,since it is not real.

[Rafiki]

Yes compman I've seen them use a modified version of this very popular spiral galaxy to show what they think the Milky Way looks like.

Kosh your's is a good guess but, as can be seen from the picture below, it is not the Andromeda galaxy.

Andromeda Galaxy M31

[primal]

well there is a pegasus dwarf galaxy

[Rafiki]

Well primal I don't know about that.
Do you mind telling me where you found that information about a Pegasus dwarf galaxy.

The picture you posted is that of the Stephan's Quintet HCG 92.
A set of four colliding dwarf galaxies (NGC 7318A/B, NGC 7319 and NGC 7320) located in the Pegasus Constellation.

In fact i think it's a full picture of this set that was used to create the background of the fourth screen capture in my original post.
Here is another picture of it.


Cleaned up and rotated somewhat it can very well be what the SGA producers used for the background to that fourth screen capture.

[primal]

itz part of the andromeda galaxy actually..more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Dwarf_Irregular_Galaxy

as 4 the pic just searched google images of the pegasus dwarf galaxy till i found that one lol :)

[Rafiki]

Interesting.
So there is a real Pegasus galaxy.
In actual fact two. The Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy and the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy.
It is generally assumed that the latter one is the one in Stargate Atlantis.
As can be deduced from their names these are small non-spiral galaxies and probably not the grand spiral galaxy used as background to the midway station.

So far i could not find a true picture of which I can be sure that it is a picture of this Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy.
The ones found with Google Image search are pictures of other galaxies. I also looked on the Hubble site but could not find anything.

Something interesting I came across is a list of the planets in the Stargate universe with their gate addresses and descriptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Galaxy_%28Stargate%29#Pegasus_Galaxy

Have a look.

[compman777]

lol, well you all do know that stargate is a scifi fictional story so they can make up whatever they want to.  but you all have very interesting pictures and information.

[Rafiki]

Ahh!
I finally found real photos of the two Pegasus Dwarf Galaxies.
They are the clusters of faint blue stars in these images. Not the bright foreground stars.
As I suspected they are nothing like the galaxy images used as background to the Midway station.

The Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy at 3 million light years away from earth.
This is the most likely 'Pegasus Galaxy' of Stargate Atlantis.



and The Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy at 2.6 million light years away from earth.

[compman777]

wow, we better get are x-304s ready and we can be there by march

[Rafiki]

OK Let's see if you guys agree with me or not.
It looks to me like they used an image of the 'Darling of the universe' to create the backgrounds to the first three screen captures.
That is the popular Whirlpool Galaxy M51. One of the best known examples of a spiral galaxy.

This is what the Whirlpool Galaxy looks like.




And what I think they have done was to blank out the outer ends of the two spiral arms and keep the center part. That is the part inside the line I've drawn on the following image.



Please watch the episode (SGA - 3x10 - The Return Part 1) at around 2 minutes 9 seconds when you compare the images.
See if you agree or not.

[compman777]

well you have a good argument Rafiki. that is possible.