46 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2019
NGC 891
You know, second place is fine if
people remember you. NGC 891 is the
second-best galaxy in the constellation
Andromeda. Not bad, except the constel-
lation’s top dog happens to be one of the
sky’s supreme wonders: the Andromeda
Galaxy (M31, the last entry on this list).
Despite often being overshadowed,
NGC 891 ranks as one of the sky’s best
edge-on spiral galaxies. It inclines only
1.4° to our line of sight. Its more than
4-to-1 length-to-width ratio (13.0' by 2.8')
and magnitude 9.9 brightness easily
earned it the nickname the “Silver Sliver.”
But it has another common name as well,
given to it sometime within the past half-
century: the Outer Limits Galaxy.
To find NGC 891, locate magnitude 2.2
Almach (Gamma [γ] Andromedae) and
move 3½° due east. I’ve really enjoyed the
views I’ve had of this object through small
scopes. True, not much detail is visible, but
you’ll immediately see why this object
earns the “sliver” descriptor.
You’ll do better if you can move up to
a 10-inch telescope, which reveals a sym-
metrical object about 10' long with a
noticeable but narrow central bulge. A
dark dust lane bisects the galaxy and runs
nearly its entire length. This is a really cool
feature to spot, so it’s definitely worth
waiting for the seeing (atmospheric steadi-
ness) to improve. Additionally, dozens
of foreground stars populate the field,
which adds the third dimension of depth
to the view.
At magnifications above 200x, note the
sections of NGC 891’s nucleus on each side
of the dust lane. The western section glowsslightly brighter. Likewise, the galaxy’s disk
to the southwest outshines its lesser half,
which lies to the northeast.M104
Deep within Virgo sits a showpiece spi-
ral galaxy guaranteed to delight amateur
astronomers and the general public alike.It’s easy to see why the creators of The
Outer Limits selected this object for the
credits sequence. The Sombrero Galaxy is
undoubtedly one of the finest objects you
can see through a small telescope.
But permit me a bit of science. M104
was the first galaxy astronomers discovered
with a large redshift, which refers to the
magnitude of the galaxy’s motion away
from us caused by the uni-
verse’s expansion. In 1912,
American astronomer
Vesto M. Slipher discovered
the Sombrero Galaxy was
moving away from us at a
speed of 2.2 million mph
(3.6 million km/h).
At magnitude 8.0, M104 is a bright
spiral galaxy. And that brightness is
confined to a relatively small area measur-
ing only 7.1' by 4.4'. Because it is both bright
and small, the galaxy’s surface brightness is
relatively high, which makes it easy to see.
To find it, point your telescope 5½° north-
northeast of magnitude 2.9 AlgorabR. JAY GABANYKEN CRAWFORDNGC 891
M104