AAO image reference AAT 61. « Previous || Next »
Top left is NE. Image width is about 10 arc min
Image and text © 1989-2002, Anglo-Australian Observatory, photograph by David Malin.
M65 is an elegant spiral galaxy which is highly inclined to our line of sight, revealing a prominent and bright central bulge. Apart from the bulge, the other notable feature of M65 is its dust lane, which so obviously surrounds the galaxy but is only clearly seen where it hides a bright background. Elsewhere, dust is associated with bright, clumpy knots of star formation visible along the inner spiral arm. One arm of the galaxy seems slightly displaced, as though it had undergone some interaction with other massive galaxies. This is hardly surprising, since it is a member of a small group about 30 million light years away that includes M66 and NGC 3628.
Entry from NGC 2000.0 (R.W. Sinnott, Ed.) © Sky Publishing Corporation, 1988:
NGC 3623 Gx 11 18.9 +13 05 s Leo 10.09.3 B, vL, mE 165deg +/- , gbMBN; = M65More data about this galaxy is accessible from the hotlinked NGC name and is reproduced
with permission from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED).
Related Images
AAT 62. Messier 66 (NGC 3627) spiral galaxy in Leo
AAT 63 . Edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3628 in Leo
AAT 103. The galaxies of the Leo Triplet
For details of photographic exposure, search technical table by AAT reference number.