The Eye of Horus - NGC-1097

Image Description and Details : NGC1097 is a splendid barred spiral galaxy, about 45 million light years away and located in the southern constellation of Fornax. It is cataloged as a Seyfert galaxy and at its center hosts a supermassive black hole that is devouring a few billion tons of matter every second.

The object is really interesting to photograph because it has many molecular hydrogen clouds (star formation zones), some of which are positioned in a circular shape right around the galactic center and spiraling around the black hole. The spiral shape is deformed due to the gravitational interaction with some neighboring galaxies: NGC1097A (embedded “perspectively” in one of the two arms) and NGC1097B (farther from the center).

Copyright: Massimo Di Fusco