Sombrero Galaxy

• by Hubble1

  Is this a sombrero galaxy?

  Posted January 15, 2014 10:24 PM

• by JeanTate in response to Hubble1's comment.

  It's IC 0615, a near edge-on spiral galaxy with an extremely dense dust lane ... to appear this red in an IR image, the dust must block all but the longest wavelength light. In the sense that the Sombrero galaxy (M104) is also a nearly edge-on galaxy with a dense dust lane, yes it's similar. However, IC 0615's bulge is much smaller than M104's.

  Here's an SDSS image of IC 0615:

  

  And a Hubble image of M104 (source; different filters and color stretches than SDSS):

  

  And an IR image (same source; different filters than UKIDSS):

  

  Posted January 16, 2014 12:19 AM