This
Astrobin Debut Object is a faint barred grand design spiral galaxy located 110 million light years away in the constellation of Centaurus at a declination of -41 degrees. It is a magnitude 12 galaxy that spans 4 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a Milky Way like diameter of 120,000 light years.
Although faint, this is a beautiful graceful disk, with 2 distinct arms emanating out of opposite ends of the bar and each extending 360 degrees clockwise around the core. A few faint star clouds are visible in the outer regions of the arms. The central bar is actually a
barlense. Note the faint bright ansae at each end of the bar.
The disk would be more visible if this object wasn't so low in the sky from my location, with a maximum transit of 18 degrees elevation about the horizon. Hopefully one of my southern hemisphere friends, or at least someone who has a scope in the southern hemisphere, can capture another image sometime of this interesting object.
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