Astr112 Photography Projects, Spring 2005

NGC 4559, Alicia Heersink

NGC 4559 is a spiral galaxy with a short bar, making it a SBa galaxy. It is located in the constellation Coma Berencies. A supernova of type II went off in this galaxy many years ago. This galaxy is thought be 20-40 million light years away from us, with a surface brightness of 13.0 and a magnitude of 10. NGC 4559 is a galaxy with many new stars forming in it's huge spiral arms full of dust. It is thought to contain one or a few intermediate-mass black hole(s). The diameter of NGC 4559 is 87,000 light years! One light year equals 63,240 AU's which is the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

This image was taken in the late winter and early spring of 2005. You can tell that this is a sBa galaxy by the short bar, from which the long arms proceed. The image gives off blue, which means that recently high mass stars have formed here. The middle is yellow and tells of older star formation. The pictures shows some black "lanes" which are dust lanes, where the new stars are forming.

References:
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n4559.html
http://www.astrophotos.net/pages/GALAXIES/NGC%204559.htm