April 2017 - Picture of the Month
NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 in the Constellation of Virgo
It's Spring time in the northern hemisphere, and that means galaxies for the deep-sky observer. It also means that the nights are getting shorter at northern latitudes, so make the best of your observing opportunities.
I've chosen another galaxy this month, or in this case a pair of colliding galaxies: the Siamese Twins. These two are in the early stages of their collisions and still look like spirals with very minimal distortion.
A little investigation reveals that the image above is only about 13 arcminutes across: these are not large objects. Kepple and Sanner suggest a 12–14 inch telescope to observe the pair, but they may be visible as a fuzzy "V" in smaller scopes?
James Whinfrey - Website Administrator.
