NGC 1365 - barred spiral galaxy in Fornax

NGC 1365 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Fornax. It is about 60 million light-years away and is a member of the Fornax cluster of galaxies. NGC 1365 is a type 2 Seyfert galaxy. As seen from Earth, it rotates clockwise and a complete revolution takes about 350 million years. NGC 1365 has a brightness of +9.5 mag and an angular size of 11 x 6 arcmin. Its real size is about 200 000 l.y. which makes it one of the biggest known galaxies. As with most of the spiral galaxies, there is a black hole in the center of NGC 1365. By a happy coincidence (a gas cloud is situated on the line of sight between the Earth and the center of the galaxy), the diameter of the X-ray emitting gas disk around the black hole could be measured recently by space-based X-ray telescope Chandra. According to the measurement, the gas disk has a diameter of 7 AE, which represents only ten times the calculated event horizon. In NGC 1365 have been observed four supernovae : SN 1957C (type unknown), SN 1983V (type Ic), SN 2001du (Type II-P) SN and 2012fr (type Ia).

This is an image taken with 16" Dream Corrected Astrograph (DCA). An image taken with 12" ASA astrograph can be seen here

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