NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1 (Molly Wakeling)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: NGC 4627 · NGC 4631 · NGC 4656 · NGC 4657

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NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1

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NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1

The Whale Galaxy is an edge-on barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici, which is lush with galaxies, thanks to it being up out of the plane of the Milky Way, giving us a clear view out into the depths of intergalactic space. It lies about 30 million lightyears away from us. The splotch above the Whale is dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 4627, which lies physically near the Whale.

The unusually-shaped galaxy in the lower left of the image is actually two galaxies, NGC 4656 and 4657, sometimes informally referred to as the Hockey Stick Galaxies or Crowbar Galaxy. The long one with the tail is the former, and there's a little one on the top left edge of that one that's the latter. The tail on 4656 is thought to be a result of gravitational interaction with the Whale and NGC 4627 above it.

Scattered throughout the image are a multitude of tiny, far more distant galaxies, including some dim splotches that are as far as 2 *billion* lightyears away!

When you take a closer look to spot those tiny galaxies, don't mind the noise...there's a lot of light pollution to cut through around here! I'll collect more data next year (and some true luminance) and see if I can improve it. Or get that data at the Texas Star Party. We'll see.

Women Astrophotographers
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3174186
PixInsight job	8HVFTXNDKAJNVGNAOMGKFAV4SMXGE13A
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	12h42m06s.68
RA (top/left)	12h45m28s.50
RA (top/right)	12h38m51s.84
RA (bottom/right)	12h38m48s.66
RA (bottom/left)	12h45m18s.22

Dec (center)	+32°32′50″.4
Dec (top/left)	+33°15′57″.7
Dec (top/right)	+33°17′16″.8
Dec (bottom/right)	+31°49′21″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+31°48′03″.0

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NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1

NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1

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NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1

NGC 4631 Whale Galaxy #1

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