Astr112 Photography Projects, Spring 2006

NGC3184, Brian Simonds

The NGC galaxy is a fairly large and face-on spiral galaxy. Even in the darkness of the sky it still has incredible beauty within its spiral arms. This galaxy is found in the Ursa Major constellation, also known as the Big Dipper. The stars in the arms of this spiral galaxy were formed in huge density waves that circle in the center. This galaxy can easily be found with a small telescope, mainly because of its size.

NGC3184 contains a relatively small nucleus for it large overall size giving it an Sb type of galaxy. The spiral arms consume the majority of this galaxy, as well as the hundreds of billions of stars that it mothers. The blueness of the spiral arms are due to the young bright stars that form in the density waves. The angular size is approximately 10.5 arc minutes, while the distance is 39 million light years away from earth. Therefore the linear size is approximately 121,000 light years large, which is similar the the Milky Way galaxy.

References:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000920.html http://www.heavenlyview.com/ngc3184starparty02.htm http://www.marketiq.com/astro/aa122700.htm