Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4559
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NGC 4559, Gary Imm
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NGC 4559

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 4559, Gary Imm
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NGC 4559

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Description

This object is a beautiful spiral galaxy located 30 million light years away in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It is about the size of our Milky Way and contains about 250 billion stars.

In my quest to image all of the Caldwell objects visible from my location, I have encountered some faint and difficult targets lately. But this one was a pleasure - bright and with substantial detail. I find the star clusters, HII regions, and dark dust lanes of this galaxy to be fascinating. The galaxy has a non-symmetric structure which I find interesting and which extends much further on the right side. As Astrobin shows, the galaxy contains 7 different IC-designated objects, each one a HII region or star cluster.

This galaxy is thought to contain a Luminous Blue Variable (LBV), reported in 2012 and again seen in 2014. The LBV is located in the distinct small group of blue stars immediately below and to the left of the galaxy. It is the top most star of this small group. In my image the star is barely visible, while in the images which document the LBV the star is much brighter.

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