NGC 3521 in the constellation Leo from the ESO. Click for larger. Credit: ESO/O. Maliy

I decided to post this lovely image by the ESO thinking (apparently not too hard) this would be something to look for while watching the Perseid meteor shower.  The galaxy is about a magnitude 8.9, but perhaps with a nice dark sky with a lot of clarity I might be able to see it with binoculars and I could always use the scopes.

Then I remembered seeing and making a mental note of the moon rise about a week ago as I was playing with Holly (my getting large puppy) and realized there would be a full moon.  This will wash out the meteor shower some, still the moon is low in the sky and the Perseids are a fantastic shower so I’ll still be out there IF I have somewhat decent skies.

What about NGC 3521?  That’s the other part things not working out.  For one thing the galaxy is located 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo, specifically at:

RA 11h 06m 25s
Dec -00^o02’13″

and will be out of a viewing position for me by the time it’s dark enough to see it.  Oh well the image is incredible and way more detailed than any I’d get; I won’t say totally better than I would get because seeing it for myself is always more satisfying.

The caption below refers to Messier’s Catalog here’s the online version at SEDS.

Here’s the ESO caption for the image (you can larger versions at this link too):

This new picture from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows NGC 3521, a spiral galaxy located about 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). Spanning about 50,000 light-years, this spectacular object has a bright and compact nucleus, surrounded by richly detailed spiral structure.

The most distinctive features of the bright galaxy NGC 3521 are its long spiral arms that are dotted with star-forming regions and interspersed with veins of dust. The arms are rather irregular and patchy, making NGC 3521 a typical example of a flocculent spiral galaxy. These galaxies have “fluffy” spiral arms that contrast with the sweeping arms of grand-design spirals such as the famous Whirlpool Galaxy, or M51, discovered by Charles Messier.

NGC 3521 is bright and relatively close-by, and can easily be seen with a small telescope such as the one used by Messier to catalogue a series of hazy and comet-like objects in the 1700s. Strangely, the French astronomer seems to have missed this flocculent spiral even though he identified several other galaxies of similar brightness in the constellation of Leo.

It was only in the year that Messier published the final version of his catalogue, 1784, that another famous astronomer, William Herschel, discovered NGC 3521 early on in his more detailed surveys of the northern skies. Through his larger, 47-cm aperture, telescope, Herschel saw a “bright center surrounded by nebulosity,” according to his observation notes.

In this new VLT picture, colorful, yet ill defined, spiral arms replace Herschel’s “nebulosity”. Older stars dominate the reddish area in the center while young, hot blue stars permeate the arms further away from the core.

Oleg Maliy, who participated ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 competition [1], selected the data from the FORS1 instrument on ESO’s VLT at the Paranal Observatory in Chile that were used to create this dramatic image. Exposures taken through three different filters that passed blue light (colored blue), yellow/green light (colored green), and near-infrared light (colored red) have been combined to make this picture. The total exposure times were 300 seconds per filter. Oleg’s image of NGC 3521 was a highly ranked entry in the competition, which attracted almost 100 entries.