NGC 4449

NGC 4449 is an irregular galaxy in Canes Venatici. NGC 4449 was one of William Herschel's discoveries; he found it on April 27, 1788. It has a visual magnitude of 9.4, and apparent dimensions of 5.1'.

This irregular dwarf galaxy is part of the Canum Venaticorum group of galaxies, some 12 million light years away. Less than 20,000 light-years across, this galaxy is very similar our Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, in both structure and size.

The central part of NGC 4449 contains of a population of very young stars, not much older than 5 million years, which extend through the galaxy in a bar formation. Numerous red H II regions are currently forming stars. Chains of young bluish-white star clusters are visible, some of them near massive dark clouds of gas and dust which provide the fuel future episodes of star formation.

Radio observations show that NGC 4449 is embedded in a huge gaseous halo with a diameter 14 times the optical size.