The Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565)

clic for 36% size 1328 x 950 (255 kB)

Clic here for 60% size 2213x1584 (538 kB)

 

About this Image

As one of the most famous edge-on galaxies NGC 4565, also named Needle Galaxy because of it's narrow appearance, is a showpiece in the constellation Coma Berenices.

This view is displaying a classic feature of spiral galaxies, the bulge of stars near the center of the disk glowing in the yellow light of older stars. A massive dust lanes within the plain pf the galaxy shows very fine details and blueish areas of star formation. Recent observations at X-ray wavelengths have revealed powerful x-ray sources arising from the core region of NGC 4565. The major source is consistent with a low luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN). AGNs are producing x-rays and other forms of high energy radiation through accreted mass by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The galaxy spans 100 000 light years in diameter and is situated at a distance of 30 million light years. The galaxy to the top left corner is NGC 4562 in the vicinity of NGC 4565.
North is down;

Below you see a crop on the center of the above image in 40/80% size.

Literature:
ESO close-up on the central part of NGC 4565: 1.
AGN investigations: 2.


clic for 80% size 1490 x 1338 (266 kB)



Technical Details

Optics

16" cassegrain in secondary focus at f/10

Mount MK-100 GEM
Camera SBIG STL-11000M at -20C, internal filter wheel, AO-L for L frames
Filters Astronomik LRGB
Date April 17-20, 2007.
Location Wildon/Austria
Sky Conditions mag 5.5 sky, FWHM 1.6-1.8" temperature 10 C
Exposure L:R:G:B = 420:120:120:120 minutes (30-minute sub-exposures).
Processing Image aquisition in Maxim DL 4.56, Preprocessing in CCDStack; Fitsliberator; Curves, high pass filter, unsharp mask, color balance in Photoshop;