Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  NGC 4627  ·  NGC 4631  ·  NGC 4656  ·  NGC 4657  ·  Whale Galaxy
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NGC 4631 and 4656 in Canes Venatici, Jim Thommes
NGC 4631 and 4656 in Canes Venatici
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NGC 4631 and 4656 in Canes Venatici

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NGC 4631 and 4656 in Canes Venatici, Jim Thommes
NGC 4631 and 4656 in Canes Venatici
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NGC 4631 and 4656 in Canes Venatici

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Description

There are four major galactic objects in this image - two are predominant. In the upper right is NGC 4631 popularly known as the Whale Galaxy with a close neighbor NGC 4627. In the lower left is NGC 4656 and NGC 4657 known as the Hockey Stick or Crowbar Galaxy. These galaxies are believed to be interacting. Since 2010 there has been high interest in this region. There have been a number of nearby Dwarf galaxies discovered by amateur and professional astronomers; up to twelve have been surveyed and discussed since then. This image resolves six of the twelve ([TCK2017 HSC1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8] ). There is also discussion of stellar streams resulting from a hypothesized progenitor dwarf that interacted with NGC 4631 in the distant past (dwarf now dispersed). These streams are barely resolved in this image - running from about image center toward the upper right through NGC 4631. These objects are shown in the annotated image; this field lies in Canes Venatici near the Coma Berenices border. Horizontal FOV is about 88'. Image resolution on the full size image is about 1.88 arcsec/pix.

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