looked into The Eyes (Halifax)

BGO imaged NGC 4438 (centre). A fantastic galaxy in Virgo, it shows a huge halo greatly distorted by the nearby galaxy 4435. Not surprisingly, it is in the Arp catalogue, number 120. The cores of these galaxies are very bright. This target is another of the RASC Finest NGCs. Many call the two together "The Eyes."

Ugh. A lot of gradient unfortunately. And the bright Moon was 63° away.

Luminance only, 60 seconds subexposures, 10 stacked shots. FITS Liberator, Paint.NET. North is up; east is left.

The central region of NGC 4438 shows dust and mottling. Really interesting.

To the north-west, I can see a small round fuzzy. This is LEDA 169314, just below star J122716.5+130838.

South-west of the big galaxy is a faint oval ball of lint: LEDA 169320. It is in the outskirts of the wisps of NGC 4438.

PGC 40890 is south-south-west of the warped spiral. It is faint and small and does not look completely round.

PGC 40915 is a small almond shaped fuzzy south of a pair of stars with J122743.1+125233.

East of the pair is a round diffuse shape but it is not marked in SkyTools.

Nestled in the bright stars south-east of centre is the somewhat large elongated smudge of PGC 40958.

Much further away, in the bottom-left corner of the image, is a large round fuzzy. This is IC 3388.

And to the north-east, well away, there's a small oval lint thing: PGC 40981.

I think there are many faint and small galaxies in the neighbourhood.

Near the centre of NGC 4438, to the north-east, there's a faint streak. I don't know what this is. Asteroid? Cosmic ray? Background galaxy?

[ed: I first viewed these galaxies on the evening of Friday 3 May 2013.]

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Reshot on 13 May '18.

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Wikipedia link: Eyes Galaxies.