Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  IC 3533  ·  IC 3543  ·  IC 3546  ·  IC 3571  ·  IC 3582  ·  NGC 4555  ·  NGC 4562  ·  NGC 4565  ·  Needle Galaxy
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NGC 4565 Needle Galaxy, Edward Overstreet
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NGC 4565 Needle Galaxy, Edward Overstreet
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Description

The "Needle" is in Coma Berenices is one of the most prominent and famous edge-on spiral galaxies in the sky. It is also called the Needle Galaxy.
A large dust lane cuts across the nucleus of the galaxy. It blocks and reddens the light from the interior, and is easily seen in an 8 inch telescope. This edge-on galaxy is very much like two other notable examples: M 104 and NGC 891.

NGC 4565 is 30 to 50 million light years distant. Images of NGC 4565 are often used in textbooks, as it is assumed that this galaxy resembles our own Milky Way, seen from outside its galactic equatorial plane.

I imaged this with a Wide Field setup - which is not wise but changing telescopes for more focal length would have meant taking a whole new set of calibration frames - so I cropped close to 30 percent into the image and when one does that they see the loss of galaxy detail and structure. In short - a little lazy astrophotography on my end.  *Sky Safari Pro 6

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NGC 4565 Needle Galaxy, Edward Overstreet