Dwarf Galaxies Under the Magnifying Glass

With the decisive participation of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), on Mount Graham in Arizona the Large Binocular Telescope is being erected. It consists of two primary 8 meter mirrors supported by a common mounting. In spring of 2007, first observations were performed with one of the two mirrors. The first results were published in a study by MPIA’s Matthew Coleman and his colleagues, which refers to three dwarf satellite galaxies accompying the Milky Way system: their peculiar morphologies result from the complex history of their evolution due to strong gravitational interaction with the Milky Way.