H-NGC5566
Galaxy in Virgo
About
A large barred spiral in Virgo, about 66 million light-years away and nearly 150,000 light-years across. It leads a small group with the distorted NGC 5560 and the small blue NGC 5569, listed together as Arp 286. It is in the Herschel 400, discovered by William Herschel in 1786.
Imaging tips
- Only a few arcminutes across, so it is too small to frame: use a long focal length and a fine pixel scale.
- Two imagers framed NGC 5566 with NGC 5560 and NGC 5569, using LRGB: one on a 24-inch scope, one for 5.3 hours in 600-second subs.
- Three galaxies are tied together by faint bridges of material. Rolland's 5.3-hour image shows only where those bridges run; what lies inside them stays unresolved, so they need the deepest data.
- Galaxies call for broadband filters. Best around April and May; it peaks near 44° altitude from 50°N.
Facts
- Size
- 6′ × 2′
- Magnitude
- 10.5
- Coordinates
- RA 14h 20.4m, Dec +3° 56′
- Framing, APS-C
- longer than 4000 mm
- Framing, full frame
- longer than 4000 mm
- Best months
- Apr, May
- Peak altitude
- 44° from 50°N, 59° from 35°N