| Description | Fabulous galaxy in Leo, part of the January 25 CNN Challenge. The galaxy features two bright, central areas: the central bar and then part of an inner, spiral arm. When Herschel discovered it in 1784, he mistook this for a "double nebula" and listed it under two numbers. The galaxy is also listed under 7905, as a legacy of that error. The long S-shaped arms are much less bright than the core, making this a tough object to image within typical EAA time limits. In the full image you can see a tiny gray galaxy, to the lower left of the image, just beyond the curvature of the lower arm, and in the 7 o'clock direction if you considered 7903 as the face of a clock. This is a dwarf galaxy, UGC 5086, within 7903's gravitational orbit. |
