NGC 5005

NGC 5005 is an inclined spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici.

This galaxy has a relatively bright nucleus and a bright disk that contains multiple dust lanes. The galaxy's high surface brightness makes it an object that is visible to amateur astronomers using large amateur telescopes.

At 120x with a 400mm telescope, NGC 5005 appears as an elongated, diffuse patch of light with a bright, diffuse center surrounded by a larger halo. NGC 5005 has a visual magnitude of 9.8, and an apparent diameter of 5.4'.

X-ray observations of NGC 5005 imply that the galaxy's nucleus contains a supermassive black hole. Its strong, variable X-ray emission is characteristic of that expected from the hot, compressed gas in the environment outside a black hole in an active galactic nucleus.

NGC 5005 and the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 5033 comprise a physical galaxy pair. The two galaxies weakly influence each other gravitationally, but they are not yet close enough to each other to be distorted by tidal forces.