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Portal:Astronomy/Picture/10

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A color-composite image of NGC 4565 by Ken Crwford
A color-composite image of NGC 4565 by Ken Crwford
Credit: Ken Crawford

NGC 4565 (also known as the Needle Galaxy or Caldwell 38) is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. The 10th magnitude galaxy sits perpendicular to our own Milky Way galaxy and is almost directly above the North Galactic Pole. First spotted in 1785 by Sir William Herschel (1738–1822), this is one of the most famous examples of an edge-on spiral galaxy.