This photograph has been obtained by David Malin with the Anglo-Australian telescope. Messier 65 is seen as an elegant, almost edge-on spiral galaxy with a prominent central bulge. Apart from this bulge, the only other prominent feature of M65 is its yellow-brown dust lane, which so obviously surrounds the galaxy but is only clearly seen where it hids a bright background. Elsewhere, dust is associated with bright, clumpy knots of star formation visible along the inner spiral arms. While M65 is in gravitational interaction with its close neighbors M66 and NGC 3628, it seems that the appearance of this galaxy was not significantly influenced by this interaction.
This image was obtained from 3 photographic plates of different
emulsion/filter combinations. The green plate was exposed 22 minutes, the
red and blue 27 minutes each.
This images is copyrighted and may be used for private purpose only. For any other kind of use, including internet mirroring and storing on CD-ROM, please contact the Photo Permissions Department of the Anglo Australian Observatory.
Last Modification: 14 Jun 1998, 14:40 MET