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The Spindle Galaxy, M102 // Johnny Qiu
One of the most striking features of this lenticular galaxy is the dust lane which is seen almost exactly edge-on. This large dust lane is unusual for a lenticular galaxy, as most lenticulars only have one near their central regions, not spreading out across the entire disk.
Heber Curtis (1872-1942) remarked on this dust lane in 1918: "Its most striking feature is a narrow, clear-cut dark lane along the middle, marking a slight angle with the major axis."
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Spindle Galaxy, M102 // Lorand Fenyes
M102 is a curious object in the history of the Messier catalog. Discovered by Méchain in 1781, Messier did not include coordinates of M102 in his final published catalog, leading to confusion as to which object Méchain observed.
In 1783, Méchain retracted his discovery and claimed that M102 was actually an accidental duplication of M101. Since then, astronomers over the centuries tried to figure out which galaxy Méchain found. French astronomer Camille Flammarion identified this galaxy, NGC 5866, as M101 in 1917.
Messier had written down directions to the galaxy as "Nebula between the stars o Boötis and ι Draconis..." Flammarion argued that those directions make no sense unless the Greek letter omicron (o) was in fact a lowercase theta (θ). In that case, the directions make sense and point straight towards NGC 5866.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 // Oleksiy Govorun
On a personal note, this galaxy has a very special place in my heart as it (and its satellite galaxies seen in this image) were the focus of my PhD thesis that I completed back in June 2023. I spent several years studying the ins and outs of this galaxy, learning about its star formation, its interactions with its satellites, and how its spiral arms work. I'll always love the Pinwheel Galaxy!
That means that I can tell you with some expertise that M101's asymmetric structure, especially its "big wonky arm", was likely created when it interacted with its most massive satellite galaxy, NGC 5474 (bottom of image) about 300 million years ago. This created a burst of star formation, warped its disk, and the galaxy will continue to evolve over the next several billion years.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 // nyda83
Less than a year ago on May 19, 2023, a supernova was detected in M101, SN 2023ixf. The supernova was found by Japanese amateur astronomer Kōichi Itagaki (b. 1947), and you can see it here in this image as the bright blue dot in the leftmost spiral arm.
This was a big deal as it was the brightest and closest supernova to Earth in the last ten years. It likely left behind a neutron star or black hole.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 // Christopher Gomez
The beautiful face-on Pinwheel Galaxy is slightly larger than our own Milky Way and is about 21 million light years away. M101 has a large population of star-forming regions, many of which are very large and bright. In fact, in 1990 one study cataloged over 1,200 star-forming regions in this galaxy alone! Three of them are large enough and bright enough to receive their own NGC numbers!
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Mirror Galaxy, M100 // Rolf Olsen
Clearly the Mirror Galaxy is in an area of the sky rich with other galaxies. M100 is a member of the Virgo Cluster, and is about 55 million light years away.
This galaxy was discovered by Méchain in 1781, and played a role in the first observations of the Hubble Space Telescope. Within weeks of launch of the HST in 1990, operators noticed a flaw in the optical system causing the images to be blurrier than expected. This was caused by the fact that the optical mirror had been polished to the wrong shape: the outer perimeter of the mirror was too flat by about 2,200 nanometers (1/11,000 of an inch)!
To fix the issue, NASA sent up a servicing mission in December 1993 and installed what are effectively corrective glasses. In January 1994, NASA declared the mission a complete success and showed the first sharper images. Below, you can see what a difference corrective optics makes!
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Left: M100 in 1993 before corrective optics. Middle: M100 in 1994 after corrective optics. Right: M100 in 2018 with a new camera.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Mirror Galaxy, M100 // sydney
Seen almost face-on, the Mirror Galaxy is a starburst galaxy with strong bursts of star formation happening in the central regions of the galaxy over the last 500 million years. M100 has two satellite galaxies visible in this image, NGC 4323 (bottom) and NGC 4328 (left), connected to M100 by a bridge of stars.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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St. Catherine's Wheel, M99 // Mark
Despite its somewhat torturous name, M99 is a beautiful asymmetric spiral galaxy that is forming stars at an incredible rate. It has a size of about 80,000 light years, which is slightly smaller than our own galaxy. However, it weighs in at only 50 billion solar masses, which is only 5% of our galaxy!
Discovered by Méchain in 1781, this was another galaxy observed by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800-1867) in 1848, writing "Spiral with a bright star above; a thin portion of the nebula reaches across this star and some distance past it. Principal spiral at the bottom, and turning toward the right."
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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St. Catherine's Wheel, M99 // Riedl Rudolf
M99 has a peculiar name: St. Catherine's Wheel. The woman in question is St. Catherine of Alexandria (c. 287 - 305 CE), a Christian saint who was martyred.
As the narrative goes, Catherine was an early Christian convert in Roman-controlled Alexandria. When emperor Maximian began persecuting Christians, she refused to give up her faith. Maximian tortured her and put her in prison, only for her to end up converting all her visitors to Christianity.
Fed up with her, Maximian sentenced Catherine to death on a spiked wheel. In this form of punishment, the person would be braided through the spokes of the wheel. Their limbs would be broken and beat and then they'd be lit on fire. However, when Catherine touched the wheel, the story goes, it shattered. She did not escape her death; Maximian ordered her to be beheaded.
It's unknown who first named this galaxy in Catherine's honor.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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M98 // Roberto Marinoni
Containing about a trillion stars, M98 is a nearly edge-on galaxy with a slightly warped disk and tightly-wound spiral arms. M98 may have had an encounter with the nearby galaxy M99 about 750 million years ago, although those galaxies are now separated by about 1.3 million light years.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Owl Nebula, M97 // Scotty Bishop
The name comes from its distinctive shape. When the original star collapsed, it expelled matter in two opposing directions. Those two jets are almost aligned with our line-of-sight, but are just slightly off. The dust in the jets blocks some of the light in the nebula, giving it the appearance of two dark eyes.
Although it was discovered by Méchain in 1781, it was William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800-1867) who drew this nebula in 1848 and noted it's owl-like appearance: "Two stars considerably apart in the central region, dark penumbra round each spiral arrangement, with stars as apparent centres of attraction. Stars sparkling in it; resolvable."
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Here's his original drawing! It's a very cute owl! 🦉
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Owl Nebula, M97 // Roger Nichol
The last planetary nebula in Messier's catalog, the Owl Nebula is about 2,000 light years away and about 8,000 years old. As in all planetary nebulae, it formed when a Sun-like star died and ejected its outer atmospheric layers in the process. Those layers are now heated and ionized by the white dwarf that remains. That white dwarf is 70% the mass of the Sun and is scorchingly hot at 123,000 degrees!
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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M95 (right) and M96 (left) // David Cheng
M95 and M96, along with M105 and several other galaxies, make up the M96 Group. An interaction between M96 and NGC 3384 (not shown) happened about a billion years ago. This drew out a huge cold ring of hydrogen gas into the group environment stretching out across 650,000 light years of space.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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M96 // Brian Peterson
With 100 billion stars to its name (or lack thereof), M96 is a doubly-barred spiral galaxy. It is slightly asymmetric in its appearance, indicating that it is interacting with some neighbors. Who are those neighbors? None other than M95 and M105 (among others)!
M96 was one of the first galaxies to have its spiral structure recognized by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800-1867) in 1850. It was a few decades earlier that it was discovered by Méchain in 1781.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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M95 // Shannon Calvert
Home to around 40 billion stars, the barred spiral galaxy M95 is currently forming even more stars! Deep within its core is a star-forming ring that is forming stars at a rate of 0.4 solar masses per year.
Discovered by Méchain in 1781, Admiral William Smyth (1788-1865) called it a "lucid white nebula."
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94 // Byoungjun Jeong
The outer ring of the Cat's Eye, with a diameter of about 45,000 light years, is not a closed ring at all! Instead, it is a complex structure of spiral arms. This "ring" contains about a quarter of the stellar mass of the galaxy and is forming about 10% of the galaxy's new stars.
The formation of the outer ring is an open question. It has usually been attributed to an interaction or the absorption of a smaller satellite galaxy. However, neither of these scenarios is well-supported by observations and its likely that the inner disk warped the outer disk into the ring shape we see today.
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quiltofstars · 1 day
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The Cat's Eye Galaxy, M94 // Roberto Marinoni
Discovered by Méchain in 1781, the Cat's Eye Galaxy is a peculiar galaxy with two distinct rings. The inner ring is a site of intense star formation, most of that happening in the last 10 million years. This inner ring is responsible for its name, appearing like an oval in most modern telescopes instead of a bar.
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