The Elephant Galaxy

From: Richard Crisp (rdcrisp@No-Spam)
Date: Mon Apr 28 2003 - 14:16:20 MST

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    One night in late March I was exploring Coma Berenices from my backyard in
    Castro Valley and stumbled across this lovely barred spiral galaxy, NGC4725.

    I managed to get several exposures completed before the clouds moved in, but
    did not get as much as I wanted.

    Then a month went by and I had actually forgotten that I had this data until
    I was poking around my hard disk looking for something else and then
    remembered I had shot this galaxy.

    I spent a bit of time today trying to coax as much as I could from the
    image, despite that it was sort of half full in terms of exposures.

    Nonetheless it does reveal a nice barred spiral with a long "elephant trunk"
    hanging off the top.

    Since this is in prime observing position now, it may be of interest to some
    of the folks on the list.

    Two of its fainter galactic neighbors are also in the exposure, NGC4712 and
    another that is not listed in "The Sky"

    Since it is rainy out there and we are all craving some astro action, I post
    this in hopes that someone will enjoy it.

    http://www.rdcrisp.darkhorizons.org/ngc4725_page.htm

    Clear skies!
    Richard



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