Any stars seen in our sky from other galaxies? (6+9 Aug '06)

[lookahead]

In the 9 August 2006 and 6 August 2006 APOD photos, the two Magellanic clouds can be seen along with lots of other stars filling the night sky.
1) In such photos of the sky, are all the stars from our Milky Way?
2) Are stars from other galaxies able to be photographically captured in such panorama of the night sky?
3) Or are other galaxies so distant that we can only photograph the entire galaxy and not individual stars within?
4) In the space between galaxies, is it emptiness or are there stars and gases?

I'm really curious and hope you guys can enlighten me.

[harry]

Hello Look ahead

Re your questions.

In the 9 August 2006 and 6 August 2006 APOD photos, the two Magellanic clouds can be seen along with lots of other stars filling the night sky.

1) In such photos of the sky, are all the stars from our Milky Way?

Many of those stars are from the milky way and many are from distant galaxies.

2) Are stars from other galaxies able to be photographically captured in such panorama of the night sky?

With the telsescopes we have, we can flood the screen from other galaxies. But! the stars witin our milky way will have better contrast because of the shorter distance.

4) In the space between galaxies, is it emptiness or are there stars and gases?

The term empty is difficult to answer. Nothing is empty by definition.

But! if you eliminate the very few photons, neutrinos amd Hydrogen atoms, yep its quite empty.

[Qev]

In general, the only stars you'd be likely to resolve with the naked eye are ones located (relatively) nearby in our own galaxy. There might be exceptions in the Clouds of Magellan, but I doubt it. Of course, this isn't counting exceptional events like supernovae, which can be seen at rather large distances.

Space is never truly empty; even in the absence of light or particles of matter, it's constantly boiling with ghostly 'virtual particles'. You can thank Heisenberg and his crazy Uncertainty Principle for that one.

[orin stepanek]

There may be a few stars that are without galaxies. these are probably stripped from collisions and near contact of two galaxies passing by.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_a ... 0927a.html
Orin

[lookahead]

Thanks for your replies. Now I understand.