NGC 4631, NGC 4656

The spiral galaxy NGC 4631 is located in the constellation Canes Venatici, at a distance of 25 million light-years from Earth. It is comparable in size to our own Galaxy. The small elliptical galaxy nearby is NGC 4627, a companion to the Whale Galaxy. In the left part of the image is another distorted galaxy—NGC 4656, which has the shape of a hockey stick. The distorted shapes of the galaxies indicate that they experienced close encounters in the past.

Through a 254 mm aperture telescope (green zone, SQM 20.86), the edge-on galaxy NGC 4631 appears as a long, thick nebulous band in which individual stars can be discerned, with a noticeable thickening and increase in brightness at one edge. With averted vision, some non-uniformity in the nebula is noticeable. Nearby lies another spiral galaxy, NGC 4656 (The Hockey Stick), also seen edge-on but significantly fainter, appearing as a ghostly, thin nebulous strip without any details, with a barely noticeable brightening at one end. Both galaxies are visible in the same field of view of a 24 mm eyepiece.