NGC 5907

NGC 5907 is a spiral galaxy in edge position with an apparent brightness of 10.4 mag in the northern constellation of Dragon. NGC 5907 has almost no visible bulge, is very slim and presumably from the Hubble type Sc. NGC 5907 is believed to be a member of the galaxy cluster around NGC 5866, about 40 million light years away. It has a diameter of approximately 150,000 light years, according to this distance and its angular extension.

The galaxy NGC 5907 is surrounded by large tidal streams, which can not be seen in my picture because of the too short exposure time. On very long exposures under a dark sky, arc-shaped structures can be seen, which form thin loops around the galaxy. These extend over 150,000 light years into the space around the narrow spiral, also known as a splitter or knife-cutting galaxy. The star streams are likely to be the traces of a dwarf galaxy - remains along the orbit of a smaller satellite galaxy that was disrupted and merged with NGC 5907 more than four billion years ago.

See more of the exposure session in my blog ...