Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Crawford
This image is of a galaxy that is well known but I have never imaged it. I was pleased to find details embedded in the core area that remind me of the disk of M104.
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Ken,
your uncommonly fine image gives an excellent account of the morphology of the inner regions of this galaxy.
I absolutely agree about the similarity of the central region of this galaxy compared to M104, which has a gigantic bulge of old stars, compared to the small (and somewhat boxy) bulge component of NGC 4565. However, the planar disk component of these two galaxies may not be so different;
in both cases, one seems to be able to see
all the way in to the very nuclear regions of the galaxy; so maybe these two galaxies actually have a dust
ring rather than a
filled-in disk of dust.
The "ring" of dust and the "seeing into the nuclear region" have been
confirmed for the case of M104, but these qualities are also consistent with your optical-regime observations of N4565
cheers,
Robert
Madbadgalaxyman's question of the day:
What would NGC 4565 look like if it were seen face on?
Extinction by interstellar dust (within this galaxy) does not seem to be high, despite the evident Sb-Sc spiral galaxy morphology.
(In the case of M104, I and others have argued that it is actually an S0 galaxy with a dust ring. )
To me, in N4565, the small HII regions and the modest amounts of evident dust (despite the fact that this galaxy is foreshortened due to its orientation), provide evidence for a very modest rate of formation of (Massive & Luminous) OB stars in this galaxy. Small-bulged galaxies usually have a high star formation rate......but some
don't have.