- NGC 5907 The Splinter
NGC 5907 is a large spiral galaxy in the constellation Draco that we view almost edge-on. The central core of this galaxy is not as pronounced as with NGC 4565, which adds to its streak-like appearance. NGC 5907 is located around 36 million LY from us and has a physical diameter of around 120,000 LY. In 2008, deep images showed the presence of a large arcing loop circling the galaxy (not visible in my image) that presumably is the remains of a small dwarf galaxy that was gravitationally captured and torn apart by the larger galaxy. This structure is similar to looping structures around our own Milky Way Galaxy resulting from the cannibalism of smaller companion galaxies.
NGC 5907 was discovered by William Hershel in 1788. With a visual magnitude of 10.3, this object would normally be fairly easy to see in a small telescope. However, it presents such a small surface area (11.5 × 1.7 arc-min) to the observer that it is a challenge for scopes under 4 inches in diameter.
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