Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Aquarius (Aqr)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7051  ·  PGC 66566
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NGC 7051, Gary Imm
NGC 7051, Gary Imm

NGC 7051

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 7051, Gary Imm
NGC 7051, Gary Imm

NGC 7051

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a grand design spiral galaxy located 120 million light years away in the constellation of Aquarius at a declination of -9 degrees.  It spans 1 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a small diameter of 40,000 light years.  This might be the smallest grand design spiral galaxy I have imaged – usually galaxies of this size do not take on such a pure spiral nature.

The inner region is fascinating to me.  It looks like an oval lens, not a bar, with some bright regions around the rim of the lens.  This lens looks like it has a rough hexagon shape.

From our view perspective, the disk is inclined about halfway between face-on and edge-on.  Note that this inclined view makes the inner lens look a bit shorter and stubbier than it actual is.

The arms of this galaxy are diffuse, highlighted with intermittent star clouds.  The bar is asymmetric with a bright ansae region on the right side.

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