NGC 1365

NGC 1365 is a beautiful barred spiral galaxy in Fornax. It is the most prominent galaxy in Fornax, and arguably the most prominent barred spiral in the sky.

This bright, 10th magnitude galaxy is one of the finest of its class, and is visible in an 8-inch telescope. The galaxy has a well-defined 4' long E-W bar, with a bright core at its center. The core is a bright oval about 50" x 40", with a sharp stellar nucleus. The wispy spiral arms curve north and south from the ends of the bar, gradually tapering to points, and form a rounded Z-shaped halo. Traces of dust lanes can be glimpsed along the major axis. A magnitude 13.5 star is at the point of the northern arm 1.5' NW of the galaxy's center.

Some 200,000 light-years across, NGC 1365 is located 60 million light-years away, and is a member of the Fornax Cluster of Galaxies. The bar rotates clockwise at velocities of 2000 km/sec in the nucleus, making one rotation in 350 million years. The persistence and motion of the bar imply relatively massive spiral arms, with a strong rotating density wave of star formation. The knots seen along the bar are areas of intense star formation, which occurs because the bar funnels material into this area.

At the core of NGC 1365 lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom, and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole. Our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a bar, but perhaps not so prominent as the one in NGC 1365.

Supernovae 2001du, 1983V, and 1957C were observed in NGC 1365.