This small edge-on galaxy making its
Astrobin debut today is located 190 million light years away in the constellation of Perseus at a declination of +40 degrees. The galaxy spans 1.5 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of about 80,000 light years.
I imaged this galaxy because I was intrigued by the dust lanes and I wanted to see them in more detail. The main dust lane is pretty typical of an edge-on spiral, but then there is another dust lane in parallel, below the core. On the lower right, this second lane then diverges a bit to form a third dust lane in parallel! I have not found any information on this object, but I assume that the multiple dust lanes are the result of a long ago merger.
Although this dust band structure is unusual, it does happen more often than one might think. As you can see on my
Dust Bands page, numerous galaxies appear to have parallel dust bands from the edge-on view.
I find the background galaxies to be interesting as well, especially the cluster at lower right.
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