Starship Asterisk*

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 6217

Explanation: Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217, pictured above, was captured in spectacular detail in this recently released image taken by the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 6217, which spans about 30,000 light years across and can be found toward the constellation of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor).

APOD Robot wrote: Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 6217

Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 6217, which spans about 30,000 light years across and can be found toward the constellation of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor).>>

I noticed that about a third of NGC 6217 url sites have the distance
at 6 million light-years... possibly all from the following:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/ero/ero_ngc6217.html wrote:
The galaxy lies 6 million light-years away in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major.

There's also a nasty Ursa Minor/Ursa Major mixup in the various releases by NASA.

A wider field DSS2 image (from WikiSky) shows the fainter outer spiral arms that fall outside the APOD image:

Case wrote:There's also a nasty Ursa Minor/Ursa Major mixup in the various releases by NASA.

NGC 6217 is definitely at a major distance in the Minor constellation
as opposed to at a minor distance in the Major constellation.

that likely houses a supermassive black hole

interesting way to describe how a galaxy surrounds the blackhole using the word "houses"

I guess its better than using the word "cocoon"

neufer wrote:

Case wrote:There's also a nasty Ursa Minor/Ursa Major mixup in the various releases by NASA.

NGC 6217 is definitely at a major distance in the Minor constellation
as opposed to at a minor distance in the Major constellation.

I've noticed that in the related Hubble European Information Centre release about the image it states "The galaxy lies 6 million light-years away in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major". This is just adding to my confusion! Am I right in assuming that Ursa Minor must be about 54 mly futher away from us than Ursa Major

DavidLeodis wrote:

neufer wrote:

Case wrote:There's also a nasty Ursa Minor/Ursa Major mixup in the various releases by NASA.

NGC 6217 is definitely at a major distance in the Minor constellation
as opposed to at a minor distance in the Major constellation.

I've noticed that in the related Hubble European Information Centre release about the image it states "The galaxy lies 6 million light-years away in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major". This is just adding to my confusion! Am I right in assuming that Ursa Minor must be about 54 mly futher away from us than Ursa Major

Ursa Major & Ursa Minor (like all classical constellations) are made up of local Milky Way Stars.

These classical constellations are used to locate the approximate angular position of much more distance objects such as NGC 6217.