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Irregular Galaxy NGC 5408

Date:25.3.1997 Time:08:27 LT Exposure:B: 10m, V: 10m, R:5m I: 25m, Ha: 15m
Field of View:4' x 4' Receiver: 5122 CCD Filter:B, V, R+I+Ha
Instrument: Dutch 0.9m Observatory: La Silla Observer:S. Kohle

© Copyright by the observers


Astronomical Institutes of the University of Bonn

NGC 5408 is an Irregular Galaxy of Magellanic type IB(s)m in a distance of about 25 million lightyears. In the NGC catalogue it was classified as "Planetary or Galaxy?" because the light of this galaxy is dominated by its HII Region and the low surface brightness disk was not imaged then.

NGC 5408 is less bright than the Small Magellanic Cloud but it's X-ray luminosity is greater than that of the whole Local Group of galaxies ! This emission comes all from the HII region visible in the right part of the image above. One possible explanation is that about 1000 supernovae exploded in this region during the last 100000 years.

References:

A.C. Fabian & M. J. Ward 1993: MNRAS 263 L51