NGC 3945 (2014)

Just a cool looking lenticular galaxy. When I was viewing it in the archive it looked like it was shaped something like a TIE fighter but it turns out the ring goes all the way around. This is only the central part Another ring of matter encircles the galaxy further out of the frame. Here is a complete image and interesting accompanying arguments about the actual shape of the galaxy. Can you tell just from looking at it what its three dimensional shape is? Is it a oblique disk, an oblate sphere, or a combination of the two?

Since this is an infrared image, the spiral structures visible in image at the link in the above paragraph are not visible in this image.

Data from proposal ID 11219:
Active Galactic Nuclei in nearby galaxies: a new view of the origin of the radio-loud radio-quiet dichotomy?

All channels: WFC3/IR F160W

North is NOT up. It is 14.6° counter-clockwise from up.

Copyright information:
Hubble data is public domain, but I put a lot of work into combining it into beautiful color images. The minimal credit line should read: NASA / ESA / J. Schmidt

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.