I love Rogelio Bernal Andreo's extremely wide-angle images, and I'm sure I've never seen the Virgo cluster like this.
Rogelio's picture shows us (almost) the entire Virgo Cluster and gives us an idea of the distances between the galaxies and their relative sizes. We can see that no major spiral galaxy is really centrally placed. (Sorry, bystander,
NGC 4438 is not a major spiral galaxy.)
Two important and large Virgo spirals are strikingly "anemic", poor in star formation, and large. I like
this image of M58: it brings out the galaxy's bright center, its yellow bar, its faint spiral structure and its one bright cluster of young blue stars.
Another fascinating galaxy is M90. There is a great text about it
here. And here are a few snippets from that text:
For today’s Messier Monday, let’s dive deep inside the Virgo Cluster and check out one of its most spectacular surviving spirals: Messier 90.
In reality, there are an estimated 2,000 galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, but Messier 90 is one of the brightest and largest of all the spirals, significantly brighter than our neighboring big sister: Andromeda.
However, unlike most interacting galaxies, Messier 90 does not exhibit signs of intense star formation along its arms. In fact, it seems to be incredibly poor in gas for a spiral galaxy, and contains very few star-formation regions along its arms even relative to a quiet galaxy like our own!
Over time, a phenomenon known as ram-pressure stripping has caused the vast majority of interstellar gas and dust to be entirely removed from this galaxy.
Even though it’s conspicuous, very large and bright, it’s much lower in mass than we’d expect for a galaxy of this size, indicating just how much of this galaxy has been stripped away!
Fascinating! Note, by contrast,
small blue vigorously star forming spiral M99 at 5 o'clock. I have to wonder if its disturbed shape has anything to do with its falling in towards giant hungry elliptical galaxies M86 and M84.
What a great image!
Ann
I love Rogelio Bernal Andreo's extremely wide-angle images, and I'm sure I've never seen the Virgo cluster like this.
Rogelio's picture shows us (almost) the entire Virgo Cluster and gives us an idea of the distances between the galaxies and their relative sizes. We can see that no major spiral galaxy is really centrally placed. (Sorry, bystander, [url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/NGC4438-NGC4435-eso1131a.jpg/250px-NGC4438-NGC4435-eso1131a.jpg]NGC 4438[/url] is not a major spiral galaxy.)
Two important and large Virgo spirals are strikingly "anemic", poor in star formation, and large. I like [url=http://www.dudeman.net/spacedog/gn/m58.jpg]this image of M58[/url]: it brings out the galaxy's bright center, its yellow bar, its faint spiral structure and its one bright cluster of young blue stars.
Another fascinating galaxy is M90. There is a great text about it [url=https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/messier-monday-the-better-you-look-the-better-it-gets-galaxy-m90-20a125b3cb37]here[/url]. And here are a few snippets from that text:
[quote]For today’s Messier Monday, let’s dive deep inside the Virgo Cluster and check out one of its most spectacular surviving spirals: Messier 90.[/quote]
[quote]In reality, there are an estimated 2,000 galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, but Messier 90 is one of the brightest and largest of all the spirals, significantly brighter than our neighboring big sister: Andromeda.[/quote]
[quote]However, unlike most interacting galaxies, Messier 90 does not exhibit signs of intense star formation along its arms. In fact, it seems to be incredibly poor in gas for a spiral galaxy, and contains very few star-formation regions along its arms even relative to a quiet galaxy like our own![/quote]
[quote]Over time, a phenomenon known as ram-pressure stripping has caused the vast majority of interstellar gas and dust to be entirely removed from this galaxy.[/quote]
[quote]Even though it’s conspicuous, very large and bright, it’s much lower in mass than we’d expect for a galaxy of this size, indicating just how much of this galaxy has been stripped away![/quote]
Fascinating! Note, by contrast, [url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/M99s.jpg/250px-M99s.jpg]small blue vigorously star forming spiral M99[/url] at 5 o'clock. I have to wonder if its disturbed shape has anything to do with its falling in towards giant hungry elliptical galaxies M86 and M84.
What a great image! :D
Ann