May 17, 2018

NGC 5585 (May 2018)


NGC 5585 is a satellite of M101, supposedly.  It lies at about the same distance, ~20-24 million light years, and not very far from M101 in the sky.  In this image, I can clearly see a spiral structure and a brightening at the galaxy's core.  The galaxy's image gives the impression of busy-ness, as if star clusters are popping up all over it.  As galaxies go, NGC 5585 is fairly small, probably only around 35,000 light years across.

In fact, the whole frame is busy and shows a wide distance scale.  The bright star above left of the galaxy is HD238342, 680 light years away and magnitude 9.43.  The bright star on the far right, magnitude 8.85, is HD 125918 and is 5,100 light years away.

Beyond NGC 5585 are many more distant galaxies. Some of these are nearly 2 billion light years away.  They must be enormous and very bright.

This image is 22x720" with the SXVF-H9 through an Astronomik CLS filter, a Baader MPCC, and the ONTC-Synta Newtonian at f/4.95.

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