http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0203/n4631zeiders_c2.jpg

NGC 4631: The Whale Galaxy
Credit: Diane Zeiders, Adam Block (KPNO Visitor Program), NOAO, AURA, NSF
NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy seen edge-on only 25 million light-years away towards the small northern constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others the popular moniker of The Whale Galaxy. Either way, it is similar in size to our own Milky Way. In this gorgeous color image, the Whale's dark interstellar dust clouds, young bright blue star clusters, and purplish star forming regions are easy to spot. A companion galaxy, the small elliptical NGC 4621 appears above the Whale Galaxy. Out of view off the lower left corner of the picture lies another distorted galaxy, the hockey stick-shaped NGC 4656. The distortions and mingling trails of gas and dust detected at other wavelengths suggest that all three galaxies have had close encounters with each other in their past. The Whale Galaxy is also known to have spouted a halo of hot gas glowing in x-rays.

Very Nice

That's beautiful...take me there..lol

Spectacular!

justagirl

Can I come too?:D

Don't forget me , I'm coming too. Just have to take my lightsaber. ................I love beautiful places, especially Earth, but tht whale galaxy surely loooks , I duno, like a dream, a wish for something beautiful:).



But spiral galaxies look better:D(yeah, ours too;) ). They look somehow majestic and powerful.

http://www.eso.org/outreach/epr/posters/images/poster-ngc2997-normal.jpg

all credit to the The European Southern Observatory (http://www.eso.org/)

I know this is really going to slow down some computers in displaying this thread but I always liked the barred spirals and the nebula…

NGC 1300, THE barred spiral galaxy
AAO image reference AATccd014

http://www.aao.gov.au/images/image/aatccd014.jpg

Top left is NE. Image width is about 7 arc min
Image and text © Anglo-Australian Observatory, Photograph by David Malin.

Spiral galaxies appear in a variety of guises, but none are more intriguing than the barred variety. As their name suggests, these galaxies are distinguished by a bar, extending (in this case) like two more of less straight assemblies of stars either side of the bright nucleus. Caught up in the bar are two dust lanes, emerging on either side of the nuclear mass. At some distance from the nucleus, the straight, almost structureless bar and dust lanes abruptly turn at a sharp angle. It is here that the delicately curved arms of the spiral begin, and it is here that star formation is at its most concentrated.

Many spirals have such bars, including the Milky Way, where it is a subtle feature, very difficult to detect. NGC 1300, in the southern constellation of Fornax is among the finest examples. It is about 60 million light years distant and is an outlying member of a well-populated group of galaxies.