[m90ua.gif]

Lowell Observatory image of M90

The smooth-armed spiral galaxy Messier 90 (NGC 4569) in the core of the Virgo galaxy cluster, shown in a three-color reconstruction from BVR CCD frames taken with the 1.1-meter Hall telescope at Lowell Observatory. The bright unresolved nucleus is especially prominent; it shows spectral features indicating a fading burst of star formation. The nucleus looks so starlike that it has at times been taken to be a foreground star and ignored during measurements of the galaxy's redshift (actually blueshift in this case, since M90 is orbiting rapidly enough within Virgo to overcome the Hubble velocity we would normally observe).

Credit: Bill Keel, University of Alabama.

  • This image was featured as Astronomy Picture of the Day March 16, 1996
  • More Messier images from Bill Keel's collection

    [m90lim.jpg]

    Spiral galaxy M90 in the Virgo Cluster was imaged here by amateurs of the D. Nelson Limber Memorial Observatory in the Texas Hill Country near San Antonio, from their "Cruise the Virgo Cluster" page.

  • More images from the D. Nelson Limber Memorial Observatory

    Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
    Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

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    Last Modification: 2 Jun 1998, 21:50 MET