One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725 (Dave Rust)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com) · Contains: NGC 4712 · NGC 4725

Powered byPixInsight

One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Powered byPixInsight

One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

Notice anything unusual about Galaxy NGC4725?

Most things are familiar. A nicely formed nucleus with a barred feature...named for when the nucleus' jet of energy flows briefly in a straight line before curving into the spiral arm. There is the nicely formed spiral with hints of magenta regions where hydrogen gas ingnites, forming new stars.

Other than that this is....wait...do you see? 4725 has only one spiral!

Spirals are formed by ejected material shooting from the nucleus' supermassive black hole. The stuff is jetisoned from each pole. Most black holes spin on their axis. They also wobble like a top while doing so. This is the origin of the two spiral's opposing motion.

OK, I admit, astronomers say that 4725 technically has two spirals, but that they are both ejected in about the same direction, meaning that this galaxy is double-barred (one on top of the other). Indeed, both spirals are revealed on the right, as they ever-so-slightly diverge. Perhaps this phenomina is the result of no wobble in the spinning top, which would then allow other forces to influence the spirals' direction.

And some material does seem to be ejected in the opposing direction. It's not as vigorous and its contribution is masked by the especially tightly-wound structure.

4725 is 40 million light years away. Behind, at 216 million light years, is NGC4712. The more distant 4712 mocks 4725 with its conventional opposing-spiral form.

It turns out apparent one-spiral galaxies are not uncommon. There are others like NGC4618 and 4625...but this one is patricularly graceful and makes a better fashion statement.

To misappropriate Tigger's lyric,

The wonderful thing about galaxies

Is galaxies are wonderful things.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5661911
PixInsight job	6KKBWEGXBI9ZZ8JS9DDNVLXR7K4Q4JH7
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	12h50m12s.674
RA (top/left)	12h49m10s.855
RA (top/right)	12h49m11s.865
RA (bottom/right)	12h51m14s.493
RA (bottom/left)	12h51m13s.745

Dec (center)	+25°29′27″.96
Dec (top/left)	+25°38′57″.41
Dec (top/right)	+25°19′37″.30
Dec (bottom/right)	+25°19′56″.50
Dec (bottom/left)	+25°39′17″.32

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725

One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725

One-Armed Bandit - Galaxy NGC4725

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information