NGC 4565 (Needle Galaxy)

NGC 4565 / Needle Galaxy is an edge-on spiral galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices, located at a distance of 43 million light-years away from Earth. It was observed for the first time by William Herschel in 1785 and serves as a prototype for observing edge-on galaxies.
NGC 4565 has an impressive size of 175.000 light-years and it’s also very luminous. The flat shape if its nucleus suggests that it is actually a barred spiral galaxy, as our Milky Way is. Two satellite galaxies have been observed and approximately 240 globular clusters, many more than our own galaxy.
In long exposures, one can observe the warped shape of the spiral’s edges and the higher density of star-forming regions. This is a consequence of the gravitational interactions with the other members of the Coma I cluster, the home of NGC 4565. This cluster is rich in spiral galaxies and poor in lenticular and elliptical ones, and will eventually merge with the Virgo Cluster.