Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4939
NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill
NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill

NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo

NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill
NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill

NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo

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Description

"NGC 4939 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Virgo. It is located at a distance of about 120 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 4939 is about 190,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on March 25, 1786. NGC 4939 has been characterised as a type II Seyfert galaxy, a galaxy category which features bright point-like nuclei. The galaxy has a large elliptical bulge and maybe a weak bar. It is a grand design spiral galaxy, with two tightly wrapped arms emanating from the bulge. The arms are thin, smooth and well defined and can be traced for nearly one and a half revolutions before fading. Two symmetric arm sections or arcs are observed in the central part of the galaxy. The galaxy is seen with an inclination of 56 degrees. The rotational speed of the galaxy is about 270 km/s.” ……Wikipedia (abridged)
What a beautiful grand design spiral it is. The small bright centre characterising a Seyfert Galaxy quickly fades out to a classically yellow core. The Wikipedia write up suggests there may be a weak bar. I thought if I distort/ deconvolve it back to a face on aspect, that might inform this question. I did so, in version I. This suggests to me that there is no bar and that the galaxy is simply a classic grand design spiral. This view also gives a better look at the structure of the spiral arms. There are indeed two arms winding around the core, however, one of them seems to have lost its shape at left in the image, but after this disturbance, continues to wind around to the other side of the galaxy. The other arm is more intact but shorter. 
There was basically no discernible Ha, so this is an LRGB image. Once again, I tried to be judicious in the use of BlurXTerminator, so as not to overdo it. To my eye I have avoided the cartoon like appearance when the deconvolution is pushed too far as I am wont to do. Does it look like a photograph?
Revision H shows that the galaxy is quite small in the original FOV. Although it is large, it is distant.

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Revisions

    NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill
    Original
    NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill
    G
    NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill
    H
    NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill
    I

G

Description: Zoomed in version

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H

Description: Original full FOV image. There is a beautiful ring galaxy at lower left PGC 976095

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I

Description: Deconvolved with the Photoshop distort function to simulate the face on appearance

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NGC 4939 - a stunningly beautiful spiral in Virgo, Niall MacNeill