Pinwheel Perfection
18 JUNE 2020 • SKY & TELESCOPE
my 8-inch at 93×. With the 16-inch, NGC 5473 is very bright
at 76× (which is the low power that I use for star-hopping to
targets) and shows a bright nucleus and a 14.3-magnitude
star northeast of the nucleus.
A tight trio dominated by the lenticular galaxy NGC 5485
(seen at 93× with my 8-inch) lies only one high-power fi eld
east-northeast of NGC 5473. In the 16-inch NGC 5485 is
bright, fairly large, round, and brightens gradually toward
the visible nucleus. Only 6′ to the north-northeast, the spiral
NGC 5486 is quite large, but it’s faint and amorphous with a
very faint nucleus. The magnitude-14.7 elliptical NGC 5484
is small and very, very faint, but easy to fi nd because it’s
only 4′ northwest of bright NGC 5485. PGC 50395 lurks
in the same high-power fi eld of view, 13′ south-southeast ofNGC 5485. This magnitude-13.8 lenticular wasn’t included
in the New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars
— although it’s nonstellar it’s very small, which is why it may
have been omitted.
NGC 5585 , an M101 Group spiral lying 3.3° northeast
of M101, was obvious at 76×. With the 16-inch at 203× the
galaxy is large, bright, and amorphous. At 114× it resembles
an unresolved globular cluster.
While here, we might as well observe NGC 5585’s two
bright neighbors, NGC 5631 and NGC 5678. NGC 5631,
lying just short of 1° east of NGC 5585, is in the Herschel
400 list and so — even though the galaxy is tiny — I saw it
immediately with my 8-inch at 64×. At 203× it was small,
round, and moderately faint with a faint nucleus. In theqIRREGULAR CONGLOMERATION NGC 5477, another member of the M101 Group, exhibits bright nebulae all across the galaxy. The nebulae
comprise glowing hydrogen gas and are the birthplace of new stars. Normally, the clouds of gas would glow pinkish red, but the selection of fi lters for
this image makes these regions look blue or white. Look carefully: Can you see background galaxies peeking through NGC 5477?ESA / HUBBLE / NASAN