NGC 4565 The Needle Galaxy (Luis Romero Ventura)

NGC 4565 The Needle Galaxy

NGC 4565 The Needle Galaxy

This bright galaxy is one of the most famous examples of an edge-on spiral galaxy, oriented perpendicularly to our line of sight so that we see right into its luminous disc. NGC 4565 has been nicknamed the Needle Galaxy because, when seen in full, it appears as a very narrow streak of light on the sky.

Studying galaxies like NGC 4565 helps astronomers learn more about our home, the Milky Way. At a distance of only about 40 million light-years, NGC 4565 is relatively close by, and being seen edge-on makes it a particularly useful object for comparative study.

Taken from our backyard observatory. We hope you like our work.

NGC 3077 looks like a typical, relatively peaceful elliptical galaxy. It lies about 12.5 million light-years from Earth.

The dark clumps of material scattered around the bright nucleus of NGC 3077 are pieces of wreckage from the galaxy's interactions with its larger neighbours. NGC 3077 is a member of the M81 group of galaxies and it resides 12.5 million light-years from Earth.

NGC 3077 was first seen by William Herschel with his 47 cm telescope in England in 1801, when he was close to completing his sky surveys. It is located in the far northern sky in the constellation of Ursa Major (the Great Bear) and forms a triplet with two brighter nearby galaxies, the graceful spiral Messier 81 and the very peculiar and active starburst galaxy Messier 82.

NGC 3077 is also very active and resembles a less dramatic version of Messier 82. Interactions between the three galaxies have stoked the fires of star formation in the core of the galaxy and the brilliant glow of many huge young star clusters at the centre of NGC 3077 dominates the Hubble image. If you look closely you can see vast numbers of individual stars in the galaxy across the entire image, as well as several, much more remote, galaxies seen through the much closer NGC 3077.

Telescope: RC16"
Mount: ASA DDM85XL
Reducer: Massimo Riccardi Reducer 0.75x
CMOS: IMX571 C (resolution 0.32"/px)
Total exposure: 18.3h (220x300")

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