Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Fornax (For)  ·  Contains:  NGC 1097
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The Eye of Horus - NGC 1097, Massimo Di Fusco
The Eye of Horus - NGC 1097
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The Eye of Horus - NGC 1097, Massimo Di Fusco
The Eye of Horus - NGC 1097
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Description

NGC1097 is a splendid barred spiral galaxy, about 45 million light years away and located in the southern constellation of Fornax. It is cataloged as a Seyfert galaxy and at its center hosts a supermassive black hole that is devouring a few billion tons of matter every second.

The object is really interesting to photograph because it has many molecular hydrogen clouds (star formation zones), some of which are positioned in a circular shape right around the galactic center and spiraling around the black hole. The spiral shape is deformed due to the gravitational interaction with some neighboring galaxies: NGC1097A (embedded “perspectively” in one of the two arms) and NGC1097B (farther from the center). There are also some “jets” (three visible primary ones) that seem to come out of the galactic nucleus: in recent years it has been discovered that they are tidal tails formed by stars of some dwarf galaxies dismembered by the attractive force of the main galaxy.

More details here: https://astrotrex.wordpress.com/2023/02/17/shara3-the-eye-of-horus/

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