The SMC is a neighbouring patch of glowing starlight easily visible by eye in the southern hemisphere's southern region, it being circum polar. The SMC, along with the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud) were named after Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who, with other members of a 1519 expedition, were the first Europeans to sight and then name these two interesting objects. At this stage, galaxies were not known of, the objects appeared to them as 'cloud like'. The Large and Small Clouds are now, recognised as the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way Galaxy, at approximately 160,000 and 200,000 L.yrs. There is a wealth of structures in the SMC as is in the LMC.  Glowing gas clouds surround hot, newly formed stars with many small planetary nebulae barely a light-year across appearing as shell-like dust and gas remnants. The SMC, like the LMC are being attracted by the much larger gravitational force of our own Milky Way galaxy, eventually to collide and become a part of it.               NOTE: In this image, only a section of the SMC has been imaged. The HII areas have been enhanced by the use of a Ha filter, substituted for the red filter/ channel.

 Conditions- Both nights transparency and seeing was poor to average.   Image reduced to 85% of original.