This object is a large barred spiral galaxy located over 50 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus. Although it appears to be a face-on galaxy, it is actually inclined to us at an angle of 40 degrees. It is much larger than our Milky Way galaxy, at 170,000 light years in diameter, but is only about 7 minutes wide in our apparent view because of its large distance from us.
In his
Arp catalog, Dr. Arp classified this object into the category of Spiral Galaxies with Low Surface Brightness Companions on Arms. But I don't see such a companion here.
This is the brightest Seyfert galaxy in the entire night sky. Seyfert galaxies are named for American astronomer Carl Seyfert, who first identified them. They are believed to be home to supermassive black holes of between 10 and 100 million solar masses,. They contain an active galactic nucleus (AGN) which has strong emissions in the infrared, ultraviolet, and X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
This galaxy is one of the largest galaxies in the Messier catalog. Although its apparent view to us is small and its outer regions are somewhat faint, I find it to be one of the prettier galaxies. I like the broad extent of the hazy outer region, which expands the galaxy to 3X the width. This outer region has a bluish cast. I also like the blue star clusters and red HII regions, as well as the spiraling dust lanes which appear both organized and disjointed at the same time. Several smaller faint galaxies are visible in the background. A few are actually visible through the starry haze of the outer galaxy region.
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