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NGC 4725 (Coma Berenices)

Object image
Fig.1 - A galaxy with only one spiral arm: NGC 4725 (image center) in Coma Berenices, the brightest member of the Coma I Group of galaxies. Another member of the group, NGC 4712, can be seen to the upper left. Image taken with a 16-inch f/4.5 Dob on an equatorial platform.
Object name: Constellation: Coordinates: Apparent size: Visual brightness:
NGC 4725 Coma Berenices 12h50m / +25°30' 11.0' x 7.4' 9.3 mag

The beautiful barred spiral galaxy NGC 4725 with its prominent ring structure in the constellation Coma Berenices. NGC 4725 is a Seyfert Galaxy, suggesting an active nucleus probably containing a supermassive black hole. NGC 4725 is the brightest member of the Coma I galaxy Group and is about 40 million light-years from Earth. In the same field of view, the spiral galaxy NGC 4712 can be seen. It is 196 million light-years from Earth. NGC 4725 was discovered by Frederick William Herschel in 1785 while NGC 4712 was discovered by John Herschel in 1832 (source: Wikipedia).

Forty-nine 3-minute exposures (147 minutes total exposure) at ISO 800 taken on March 20, 2020 were added for this shot with the DeepSkyStacker software and the final image processing was done in Photoshop.

Equipment: Canon EOS 450D Baader modified camera, TeleVue Paracorr Type II coma corrector, 16" f/4.5 "Ninja" dobsonian telescope riding on a dual-axis Tom Osypowski equatorial platform, Lacerta MGEN autoguider, Lacerta off axis system (field of view comparison: image of the moon with the same equipment).

Search chart
Fig.2 - Search chart for NGC 4725. Map © 2021 "The Mag-7 Star Atlas Project", www.siaris.net. Map is slightly modified. The map can be downloaded here.
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