Starship Asterisk*

Thanks geck. I can certainly spot it in the IR image, and some others. But I was surprised to hear Chris say the bar "leaps out" at him in the APOD image. It reminds me of the image of the blue/gold dress that went viral on the interwebs a while back. Except I could see the dress either way. I just can't spot the bar in the APOD.

It is more obvious to me for this image when I am looking at it in a thumbnail view. When viewing it large, I think the bar is somewhat lost in the details.

Nitpicker wrote:Thanks geck. I can certainly spot it in the IR image, and some others. But I was surprised to hear Chris say the bar "leaps out" at him in the APOD image. It reminds me of the image of the blue/gold dress that went viral on the interwebs a while back. Except I could see the dress either way. I just can't spot the bar in the APOD.

The thing about barred spirals is that they don't really need to have a bar. What defines them better than an actual bar is the way the spiral arms end (or straighten) well outside the nucleus. That's the feature that "leaps out" at me with this image and makes this so obviously a barred spiral, despite most of the bar itself being hidden by dust.

Chris Peterson wrote:The thing about barred spirals is that they don't really need to have a bar. What defines them better than an actual bar is the way the spiral arms end (or straighten) well outside the nucleus. That's the feature that "leaps out" at me with this image and makes this so obviously a barred spiral, despite most of the bar itself being hidden by dust.

Ah. Thanks.

A spiral galaxy walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Get outta here, you're barred!"