NGC5813

NGC 5813 is a huge elliptical galaxy in eastern Virgo about 99 million light-years distant by redshift and 97 by the d-sigma method. http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Willick/frames.html I measure its size as about 177,000 light-years at the 99 million light-year distance. Since the edges just fade away this is likely smaller than its real size. While I see what look like they could be globular star clusters in the outskirts of the galaxy NED doesn't list any. I can't believe a giant elliptical like this one wouldn't have a lot of them. It seems to have some companions but their distances appear far too close to us for these to be true companions. They are apparently only line of sight galaxies. NED does list some true companions but they are all well out of my field of view. It was discovered by William Herschel on February 24, 1786. It is in the second H400 program.

NGC 5811 is listed at NED and in several catalogs as being a pair of galaxies. I can't see this in my image but the Sloan Survey image seems to indicate several pieces that may be separate galaxies. If so they have similar redshifts so are possibly in the act of merging. It was discovered by Albert Marth on April 12, 1864.

NGC 5814 appears to be a rather messed up spiral galaxy with a plume to the northeast and a short bright blue arm coming for the southern end of the central region with nothing similar off the north end. It was discovered by John Herschel on April 13,l 1828.

The other major galaxy in the image is UGC 09661. It is closer than NGC 5813 yet far smaller in angular size. It appears rather similar to NGC 5811 but more disturbed. It, however, is listed as a single galaxy.

The field contains many Emission Line Galaxies (ELG), most of which lie at great distances with most over 5 billion light-years distant so often very faint. Ultraviolet Excess Sources (UvES) are also found mostly at even greater distances. These are all quasar candidates whose distance is were determined by a less accurate photographic redshift determination (p). A few proven quasars are scattered about the image.

If an object had a designation that was only its sky coordinates and the survey that recorded it, I only noted its type as the designation with full coordinates were just too long and made an already congested image that much worse. I have noted all that had classifications, even when no distance was known (na). All with a redshift distance or classification have been included making for a rather dense annotated image.

NGC 5813 was intentionally moved to the lower right in order to better include UGC 09661 which looked rather interesting in my original focus image but was somewhat out of the field with NGC 5813 centered. With little of interest southwest of NGC 5813 but for NGC 5811 I kept in the frame I didn't hesitate to move NGC 5813 off center to better show UGC 09661.

Some of NGC 5813's true companions are interesting but they were too far out of the field to include. I'll have to catch those individually next year. Weather never allowed it to happen this year.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5813

NGC5850

NGC 5850 and NGC 5846 are a pair of large galaxies in far eastern Virgo not far from M5. NGC 5850, at first glance, appears like a normal barred spiral but look closer. It is an oddball in that it is a double barred spiral -- A barred spiral inside a barred spiral. NGC 5846 appears to be a rather ordinary large elliptical galaxy but again, looks are deceiving. It is sloshed and has no defined core (I wasn't able to show this, however) and has other unexpected features. How do you explain these two oddities?

One way is to assume they have had a high-speed collision. At least that's the opinion of one paper. http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/115/1/80/fulltext/ But this assumes they are at about the same distance. NGC 5850 is 126 million light-years distant by redshift but non-redshift distances average out to about 65 million light-years. One non-redshift measurement says 92 million. Quite a difference. NGC 5846 is 88 million light-years by redshift and 84 million by other means. This is a good agreement. Note the paper considers this a high-speed interaction so the large redshift of 5850 may just reflect a high speed through the Virgo Cluster.

I mentioned NGC 5846 while looking normal, it really isn't. You can read about these issues at this poster http://cxc.harvard.edu/cdo/xclust11/posters/Machacek_Marie.pdf . It doesn't mention NGC 5850 as being the cause, however. It does indicate that its companion NGC 5846A is being stripped by ram pressure as it falls into NGC 5846.

I'm going to assume that lone non-redshift of 92 million is closer to the truth for NGC 5850 and assign a distance of 85 million for both on the assumption the article on their interaction is correct. That would make it a very large spiral of 150,000 light-years in diameter. It is classified as SB(r)b by NED. But I think it should be SB(r)(r)b if such a classification was legal. The first ring being the ring formed around the large bar where the two arms virtually overlap creating a pseudo-ring. The second for the small one around the inner bar. This ring is a bit indistinct at one point on the east side. It too comes off the ends of the inner bar which is rotated about 60 degrees clockwise from the large bar. A dark dust lane seems to outline this inner ring. Many when imaging this galaxy blow out the core missing this hard to explain inner structure. Is this inner barred spiral due to interaction with 5846 or something else? I found nothing that explained this though several sources noted the 60-degree rotation of the inner bar. Some sources consider the odd blue somewhat radial streak at about 5 o'clock to be an edge on spiral. NED lists it and the below center blob in the streak as two separate galaxies but provides no redshift data.

NGC 5850 was discovered by William Herschel on February 24, 1786. It is in the second Herschel 400 list. While I note seeing it when observing NGC 5846 I gave no description. Herschel found NGC 5846 the same February night. It is in the first Herschel 400 list. I guess I wasn't very impressed with either as I just say it is a round, bright puff of a galaxy with NGC 5850 in the same 120x field. NED gives a size of 4.1' for its longest diameter. On my FITS frames, it fades out making the edge impossible to determine. I set an arbitrary level of 25 ADU higher than background for the edge which is conservative. I get about 7.05' for the maximum diameter and see hints out much further. Using the 7.05' size it and 85 million light-year distance it is about 175,000 light-years across, likely I'd get least 200,000 in a longer exposure.

The only other NGC galaxy in the image is NGC 5845 which has a similar redshift to 5846. I didn't catch all of it as for some reason I told the software to aim at 5850 rather than halfway between 5850 and 5846. It too was discovered by William Herschel on that same February night but didn't make either list nor did I mention it when recording 5846. Redshift indicates it is likely related to NGC 5846. It is classed simply as E:. Since I didn't pick it all up I can't measure its size on my frame. Using the size given by NED of 0.8' and assuming it is at about the same distance as 5846 then it is 20 million light-years across.

Near the left edge of my frame is CGCG 021-013. It is listed as S0/a by NED. Yet a note at NED reads: "One SDSS position refers to the eastern knot in the bar." This obviously refers to the blue blob at the left end of "the bar." Odd that it isn't classified as having a bar! Nearby is CGCG 021-015 which, while listed as Sbc is so fuzzy I can't see any real structure to it, just fuzzy patches that overlap. Is it two interacting galaxies?

ELG seen for many objects stands for emission line galaxy. These tended to be far fainter than their magnitudes in NED would indicate. There were so many and most so faint after a bit I just stopped annotating them unless they were reasonably bright (rare). Most galaxies had only positions for catalog names that were so long that with so many of them they'd have filled the image making labels nearly impossible. Others while having names had ones so long they were sometimes even longer than the positional names. I couldn't begin to fit these in and only list them as G with their distance or Q for quasar or UvES for Ultraviolet Excess Source which really means candidate quasar with only a photographic redshift (noted with a "p" after the distance estimate. That applies to the z value as well. Even though the field was near the celestial equator where I'd expect at least a couple asteroids none showed up.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5850

NGC5851

The three galaxies in the center are the WBL Galaxy Group. NGC 5851, 5852 and PGC 53961 at about 310 million light-years in southeastern Bootes. Several other galaxies in the field have a similar redshift so are likely members of the same local galaxy group just that they are too far from the three to have made the group. Groups tend to be mostly elliptical or S0 galaxies. In this case, two are obvious spirals and while NED lists the third as a spiral as does Seligman and the NGC project it looks more like S0 to my eye. Apparently, its red and dead appearance sways me. The three galaxies span a distance of only 285,000 light-years if all are at the same distance making it a rather compact group. A fourth member is just to the west but for some reason didn't make the WBL 543 club. I guess being a dwarf just doesn't cut it.

The two NGC galaxies were discovered by William Herschel on May 26, 1791, but neither made a Herschel 400 observing program.

The field contains over 3000 galaxies listed in NED. That's likely far more than the number of stars in the image. I only annotated those with redshift information at NED. In doing so I opened two cans of worms, however. Both involve galaxy clusters in the image. To the south of NGC 5851 is the cluster GMBCG J226.75567+12.75014 at 2.96 billion light-years. NED shows the galaxy I point to as WHL J150706.5+124511 BCG. That carries the name of a different galaxy cluster. NED also shows the galaxy with the GMBCG J226.75567+12.75014 name. It's not uncommon for both these catalogs to list the same cluster so at this point I wasn't too bothered but why wasn't the cluster also named under the WHL name? Then I came to a different cluster to the east of this one that did carry the WHL J150706.5+124511 name at 4.09 billion light-years but that didn't have any bright cluster galaxy listed for it. Of course not as that was given to the other cluster. Mistakes like this are rare but happen so I continued. Then I came to the bright cluster galaxy GMBCG J226.66794+12.74274 BCG. But there was no cluster by that name at that location. Its distance was listed at 3.98 billion light-years. Then below and to the left where nothing is seen, I find a galaxy cluster with that same name said to have 8 members and only 320 million light-years distant. Thus WBL 543 would be a member of this cluster if that was right! The galaxy and cluster names were too long for the annotated image but you should have to trouble finding them or in the case of the last cluster not finding it though the label is at its location. I've never encountered an error at NED of this level before. Two in one small part of an image is also unheard of. Someone was having a bad day or is this done automatically by software that has a bug in it? I know a lot of their info comes directly by computer from the Sloan database so it could be something in that has a bug in it. I didn't notice anything else wrong in the field but who knows. If individual objects were scrambled with no second reference as with cluster and the anchoring bright cluster galaxy I'd not be able to detect there was an error.

While transparency for this image was very good clouds did move in and ruin one of the red frames so I only have one red frame for this one. Fortunately, the only satellite in that frame didn't cross anything important as could be cloned out without harm.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' R=1x10' GB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5851

NGC5857

NGC 5857 and NGC 5859 are a pair of non-interacting galaxies. By redshift, they are very close neighbors though Tully Fisher measurements indicate they may be very widely separated. All Tully Fisher measurements for both were made the same way. Those listed for 5859 have three that put it much closer than redshift says, the fourth agrees with redshift measurements. Using the same system by the same authors the four measurements of 5857 agree quite well. If the closer Tully Fisher distances are used for 5859 then the two galaxies are about the same size. 5859 would be 120,000 light-years in diameter with NGC 5857 being 97,000 light-years in diameter. Using the far distance for 5859 its diameter is 174,000 light-years. That seems way too big to me. Until I learn differently I'm going to say the Tully Fisher measurement for NGC 5859 is more likely representative of its true distance and size.

Another issue with NGC 5859 is its status as a barred spiral. I can't see any hint of a bar. It appears to me the arms go in right to the core though it is so edge on this may be misleading. One note at NED also disagrees with the barred spiral classification saying they can't detect a bar either.

NGC 5857 and NGC 5859 were discovered by William Herschel on April 27, 1788. Neither are in either H400 program.

There are two other galaxies in the image at about the distance of NGC 5857. They are much smaller and while blue are of lower surface brightness as well. The only carry Sloan positions and ASK numbers for their catalog entries.

Many other interesting galaxies are in the field, most I wanted to know about had no redshift data, unfortunately. For some reason, I took one more blue frame than normal. I must have thought one of the first two was not usable but all three were of similar quality and similar to the other colors as well. Might be I just hit the wrong key.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RG=2x10' B=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5857

NGC5860

NGC 5860 as a pair (one source says trio) of colliding galaxies in Bootes about 250 million light-years from us. I've labeled the southern galaxy as NGC 5860A and the northern B though I didn't find any such formal designation. NED uses Notes 1 and Notes 2. This appears to be a rather old system in that the stars are mostly white rather than blue. Both maybe starburst galaxies. One note at NED says they are; "...a merging pair with fading starburst signatures." Though NED itself doesn't mention any starburst activity for the individual galaxies, it does say of the combination, Star-burst nucleus" and classifies the combination as S?. The pair was discovered by John Herschel on May 1, 1828.

There are two somewhat blue condensations in the Sloan image that appear white in mine. The difference is possibly due to the Sloan data containing a near Uv channel that would add strong blue light I don't see as my filters block Uv light. The one in 5860B is to the northeast while the one to in 5860A is to the northeast. I mentioned one source sees this system as a triple. It identifies the blue knot around 5860A as the third galaxy. I've noted it in the annotated image. No other source seems to consider this object a separate galaxy. To me, it seems virtually identical to the other blue knot. NED lists 5860A and B simply as E. The NGC project lumps them together and classifies the two as S0.

The field has one other galaxy at the same redshift as NGC 5860. It is on the far left above center. It is KISSR 1910 and is listed at NED as being a starburst galaxy. All other galaxies in the field lie well beyond these galaxies, often billions of light-years beyond. I've noted 4 major star clusters in the image. There were several others in NED listed as being candidate galaxy clusters but had no count, diameter or even a hint at where the anchoring galaxy was. For those listed all used photographic redshift measurements for the cluster itself but a couple used spectroscopic distance measurements for the Bright Cluster Galaxy. Another used the same photographic measurement for both (listed as GC/G but with one distance, not two. The fourth didn't have any redshift data on its BCG so while the label is beside the apparent BCG it is labeled only GC with one distance measurement. There was only one quasar listed for this deep field. It isn't listed as being much further away than some of the galaxies at 5.65 billion light-years.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5860

NGC5879

NGC 5879 is a somewhat edge on spiral galaxy in Draco only a bit over a degree northwest of the far better known NGC 5907 a really edge-on flat galaxy. Redshift puts it about 39 million light-years distant but Tully-Fisher measurements say it is further at about 53 million light-years. I took this on a very poor night for seeing though transparency was good. My resolution, as well as that of others, would indicate it is at least 53 million light-years distant so I'll go with that. That makes it about 75,000 light-years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 5, 1788 and is in the second Herschel 400 observing list. The main reason I put it on my to-do list.

NED shows many very faint and distant galaxies in the background. I have annotated those that survived my bad seeing. A couple quasars carry unfamiliar descriptions I've not seen before. One is listed as FSRQ which stands for Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar. This is unusual for a quasar. Even more unusual is another quasar which is listed as RQQ which means Radio Quiet Quasar. Quasars are usually very strong at radio frequencies. For one to be unusually quiet is rare. Note these aren't totally radio silent just a lot quieter than normal. As usual UvES objects are quasar candidates with only photographic redshifts which can be misleading when certain types of stars in our galaxy mimic their photographic spectra. But near the top of my image is a UvES object listed as being a galaxy by some and a Broad Line AGN by others. Since quasars are normally BLAGNs and this one has a spectroscopic rather than photographic redshift I was surprised it wasn't listed as a quasar. To its southwest was a quasar, at least NED says it is, that only had a photographic redshift. These are usually listed as candidate quasars, not full-blown ones. Taking the conservative approach I labeled it CQ rather than Q.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5879

NGC5894

NGC 5894 is a barred? spiral in Draco below the bowl of the Little Dipper about 120 million light-years distant. That makes it about 120,000 light-years across, a rather large spiral. I put a question mark after barred because some papers listed it that way and I can't see the bar. Though it is so edge-on I assume they are using radio observations of hydrogen flow to make this designation. Still, if some pros are questioning it, I put it in. NED officially classifies it as SBdm? I don't know if their question mark is for the barred status or something else. The NGC Project classifies it as SB?c-Irr showing they do question the barred status. They call it a somewhat irregular spiral while the NGC project says it is a Magellanic irregular, a more specific type. Seligman says simply SBm not questioning anything but not getting into if it is a c or d type spiral. When dealing with galaxies this edge on this difference of opinion isn't unusual. So much for astronomy as an exact science.

I put it on my list for the odd fine blue line of star-forming regions. It may be broad when seen from above or below but edge-on it is very thin and stands out. Arp put a few like this in his filament classification. It also made my list for being listed as a flat galaxy in the 2Mass Flat Galaxy Catalog as 2MFGC 12297. The Galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on May 25, 1788. Oddly, I first looked at this data on May 25, 2016, 228 years later. OK, maybe not so odd considering I've imaged more than 365 of Herschel's galaxy discoveries so it is rather expected one would get first looked at in my data on its anniversary. Also looked at and processed are two different things allowing two anniversary dates for many of these. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

It is a rather lonely galaxy with nothing but very distant companions. NED lists quite a few UvES objects in the field. These are quasar candidates but without accurate spectroscopic redshift. Some could be stars in our galaxy with spectral characteristics misleading the photometric redshift measurement. Though those it lists as UvES rarely are disproved. The field has quite a few UvS objects as well. They too are quasar candidates but most turn up false alarms. Thus I excluded those only shown as UvS objects from being annotated. Quite a few galaxy groups are listed as well. I'd not call groups of a dozen or less a cluster but that's how these are listed. All have only photographic redshift measurements. Not being possible single stars the error that plagues UvES candidate quasars doesn't apply. In one case the Bright Cluster Galaxy had its own spectroscopic redshift which I listed as well as the photographic one. A "p" denotes photographic redshifts.

One galaxy interested me but I found nothing much on it. That is ASK 111220.0 at 950 million light-years to the northwest of NGC 5894 (upper right). It has a plume off the eastern end. There may be one on the western end but then a brilliant blue object dominates. NED lists the blue object as a UvS object but without any redshift determination. It may be a separate object that may or may not be interacting with the galaxy, blue star-forming region in the galaxy or something far from the galaxy. I found nothing to help here. If unrelated I'd expect a more symmetrical look to the galaxy with an opposing plume or arm but that's not the case.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5894

NGC5899

NGC 5899 and NGC 5900 are a pair of "non-interacting" galaxies north of the "kite" of Bootes. Redshift puts them about 120 million light-years distant. I put "non-interacting" in quotes as I'm not convinced that is the case. Both have large faint halos. That of NGC 5900 seems to point down toward NGC 5899. The spiral structure of NGC 5899 seems quite unusual with one heavy arm defined by many bright star clouds of newly formed stars. The arm on the other side is hard to define. Most of the disk is full of irregular star streams that have only a vague spiral pattern to them. NGC 5900 has an intense red dust lane often seen in interacting spirals seen edge-on. Three other NGC galaxies are in the image NGC 5893, 5895 and 5896. A 6th NGC object turns out to be just a field star, NGC 5901.

NGC 5893 and NGC 5900 were found by William Herschel on April 9, 1787. They aren't in any H400 program. NGC 5895 and NGC 5896 were discovered by R. J. Mitchell on May 23, 1854. NGC 5899 was found by William Herschel on March 18, 1878. It is in the second H400 program.

NGC 5896 is classed by the NGC project as a compact galaxy. Though it appears to be a spiral galaxy with rather tightly wound spiral arms, especially the northern one. NED didn't try to classify it. NGC 5895 was also not classified by NED, though the NGC project says Sc. The barred spiral NGC 5893 has mostly featureless spiral arms, though the southern one has a detached part that is full of bright star clouds. On the northeastern side is an object NED classifies as a separate galaxy with a redshift nearly identical to NGC 5893. Is it really a separate galaxy or another star cloud? I've marked it as a galaxy in the annotated image though I am not certain this is the case. Though it could be the remains of a cannibalized galaxy's core. That would account for NGC 5893's odd spiral structure that makes it look somewhat like the CBS eye as well as the large plumes beyond the main arm structure.

This was taken on a night of rather good transparency compared to what I'd been seeing for many months. Still not up to what used to be a good night. Still, galaxies down past 23rd magnitude are seen in the image. I'd been lucky to hit 21st magnitude for many months. This allowed me to note many galaxy clusters in the image. Several are seen north of NGC 5899.

The 6th magnitude M2 giant star sent nasty glare across much of the field. While not as nasty as I get from blue stars it was no fun to deal with. Removing the glare greatly attenuated the apparent brightness of the star as well.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5899

NGC5905

NGC 5905 and 5908 are a pair of spiral galaxies in Draco less than a degree north of Bootes. They are a bit under 160 million light-years away. Most sources say they are not interacting. Though NGC 5905 certainly looks like it was torn up by some interaction in the recent past. NED and the NGC Project classify NGC 5905 as SB(r)b;HII Sy1 and SBb respectively. For NGC 5908 they both say Sb though one paper says it could possibly be Sc based on its very small core. Assuming a distance of about 155 million light-years these are large spiral, NGC 5908 is about the size of our galaxy at 122,000 light-years. Measuring the full extent of NGC 5905's distorted arms I get a size of 240,000 light-years making it an extremely large spiral though this is more due to its distortion than its being very massive as spirals go. Prior to being drawn out it likely was no larger than NGC 5908.

Most papers say NGC 5908 is very similar to the Sombrero Galaxy, M104. I suppose this is due to the very small core and a huge halo surrounding the galaxy along with a very well defined dark lane. Though the halo about M104 is far larger than the disk the disk of 5908 appears to be slightly larger than the halo.

While NED says 5905 is a Seyfert 1 galaxy a note at NED disagrees saying Seyfert 2 whose true nature is hidden by the HII emission. In any case, it certainly has an actively feeding black hole at its core. There were to Tully-Fisher distance measurements at NED for NGC 5905 that place it at about 140 million light-years. No non-redshift measurements were available for NGC 5908 that I found.

Both were discovered by William Herschel on May 5, 1788. They aren't in either H400 program run by the Astronomical League.

Look closely at the annotated image and you will find a couple dwarf galaxies with similar redshifts showing they are members of the same group. East of NGC 5908 is a pair of apparently interacting galaxies, KUG 1515+556 at 370 million light-years. The northern member is very blue and small but seems to have a large plume to the southwest. The lower galaxy is far larger and redder. It too seems surrounded by a plume of stars. At my resolution, they appear to overlap. Sure wish we could get a closer look at this pair. NED shows no papers about them.

There are several quasars in the image, two of which with redshifts greater than 2. There are several galaxy clusters as well one with its bright cluster galaxy visible at 5 billion light-years in my image. It must be a huge and brilliant galaxy.

As usual, UvES objects are likely quasars but haven't been confirmed spectroscopically with redshift being determined photometrically instead as noted by a "p" after the distance.

This is my last May 2012 object. June was a surprisingly good month but due to its lack of dark time, I need two nights to get an object. Once in a while, I got more than one but less than two. Still, it was twice as productive as February of 2012 or January and February this year.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5905

NGC5906

Usually called the Splinter Galaxy, it is located in southwestern Draco. While many NGC galaxies carry two NGC designations those refer to the entire galaxy. That isn't the original situation here. It seems William Herschel found the bright eastern side on May 5, 1788. I say that as his coordinates point to that side of the object. Later on April 13, 1850 George Stoney using Lord Rosse's 72" reflector saw the western half. Dreyer gave the eastern side Herschel found the NGC 5907 number and the western side NGC 5906 to keep them in right ascension order. Today most consider NGC 5907 the identity of the entire galaxy though that wasn't the case in Herschel's time. For instance, NED gives both the NGC 5706 and 5707 number to the galaxy while Seligman notes the distinction but adds most treat it the way NED does. The western side is very blue while the eastern side is much brighter and somewhat red in color. Nearly all the detail is in the western half, below the dust lane. I find many different distances for this galaxy. For now, I'll say it is 40 or so million light-years away though red shift puts it closer, that is often less accurate than other distance estimate methods.

This is a very early image of mine from 2007 when I was working in ignorance. I severely underexposed it. Too bad as a year later it was announced the galaxy has a huge, very faint tidal stream that circles around it. I doubt even my standard exposure used today would pick it up but at least I'd have a better image to display.

If you haven't seen the tidal stream it can be seen here https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080619.html among other locations. A search for the galaxy on most any search engines will turn up more on this feature.

NED classifies the entire galaxy as SA(s)c: sp HII: Seligman's simpler system says Sc?. I'd love to know what this looks like face-on. It appears to me that the eastern blue arms are warped below the bright red disk of the galaxy since we can't see but the western side.

As this one was done before I began researching the field of my images I don't have my usual coverage of this one. When I find the time, and maybe retake a better version, this will suffice. At the time I didn't know how to remove satellite trails so a polar orbiting something made the streak on the right side.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5906