- NGC 4565 Needle Galaxy
NGC 4565 is a spiral galaxy located in the spring constellation Coma Berenices. This is one of the best examples of galaxies that we view edge-on. In this orientation, the dark dust lane is prominent and splits the galaxy into two almost equal halves. NGC 4565 is fairly bright (visual magnitude 10) and large (16 × 3 arc-min), which makes one wonder how it was overlooked by Messier (it was first observed by William Hershel in 1785). It lies at a distance of around 30-50 million LY and, due to its size and brightness, would be a spectacular object were it oriented face-on to us.
Several companion galaxies of NGC 4565 are visible in this image. Most prominent, NGC 4562 lies in the upper right corner, with its long axis pointing toward the center of NGC 4565. In the upper left corner in IC 3546. All the stars visible in my image are Milky Way stars, including the tiny star lying just above the bulge of the galaxy along its right face (which someone might mistake for a supernova in the galaxy).
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