Starship Asterisk*

I'd better catch Art now, before he gets away from me!

I'm about to go to bed, and Art will probably hit 4314 posts before I get up in the morning. He's got 4310 as I'm writing this.

NGC 4314 is a favorite galaxy of mine. It is a very elegant barred spiral galaxy, extremely regular, entirely composed of old yellow stars. No, wait! Not entirely! There is a small wreath of blue and pink encircling the central yellow lens:
Pretty, ain't it? And here is a Hubble closeup of this blue and pink garland of fresh young stars:



This picture was APOD (or something similar) on 12.12.1999!

Congrats on your imminent galactic beauty, Art! Take a moment to savor it!

Ann

Ann wrote:

NGC 4314

---

I'm about to go to bed, and Art will probably hit 4314 posts before I get up in the morning.

NGC 4314 is a favorite galaxy of mine. It is a very elegant barred spiral galaxy, extremely regular, entirely composed of old yellow stars.

No, wait! Not entirely!

There is a small wreath of blue and pink encircling the central yellow lens.

And here is a Hubble closeup of this blue and pink garland of fresh young stars =>

This picture was APOD (or something similar) on 12.12.1999!

Congrats on your imminent galactic beauty, Art!
Take a moment to savor it!

Goodness, he's getting away from me again!!!

Art is about to hit 4321 posts! Then he is graduating to one of my absolutely favorite galaxies, the truly majestic NGC 4321! M 100!! Art, now that you are becoming the one hundreth entry in Charles Messier's catalogue of extended sky objects, you are indeed becoming Mr 100%!

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/Pre ... gc4321.jpg
Sorry that the great galaxy isn't centered in this image of M 100. Personally I think that this splendid galaxy is severely under-photographed, but I do love blue-green-yellow SDSS color portrait here. You have to put up with the off-center portrait here, Art, but on the other hand, you yourself tend to go off on a tangent sometimes (not that we all don't love it when you do... )

Ann